


Moon of Seoul

by imissedyourskin



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, ChanBaek - Freeform, Happy Ending, M/M, Seoul, although supernatural isn't the main point of the fic, bartender fic, demon/angel baekhyun, mostly it's about chanbaek, side xiusoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-02-25 22:01:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 36
Words: 239,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13222110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imissedyourskin/pseuds/imissedyourskin
Summary: Baekhyun is a fallen one, an angel gone demon, that is desperate to fulfill his one true wish: to love like a mortal. When he is granted the opportunity, shaped in the form of a new host body by the name Lee Jaehyun, he takes it with both hands and doesn't look back.Chanyeol is a soft, kind human boy looking for his lost love, a guy by the name Lee Jaehyun, who had disappeared without a trace.One day, they bump into each other...





	1. Hidden wings

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a chaptered fic. Not sure when I'll upload, it all depends on when I'll be able to write, but I hope to post once a week! 

**Hidden Wings**

 

 

~

_Lee Jaehyun. 26 years old. Anyang, South-Korea. 1,74m. Brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin, petite figure. Suicide._

 

“Do we know why he did it?” Baekhyun asked as he ran the fingers of his old and worn host body across the soft skin of his new home, “why he killed himself?” It was difficult to pretend that he cared about the answer, because in reality he didn’t. In fact, he was happy this guy had done it, because he was left in awe.

The body in front of him would give him an actual home. It would be a body to call his own. He had been waiting for this moment for years, had been begging for what felt like decades, and now the moment was here, in the shape of a gorgeous twenty-six year old guy. So no, Baekhyun didn’t care why he had done it, he felt no remorse, but he wanted to know the answer anyway.

“No. No notes were left behind and some quick research showed us that there was no reason for anyone to be worried about him. He had a pretty stable relationship, a loving family and a secure job, he must have been pretty good at wearing a mask to cover how he felt inside,” Tae-ho summarised as he read the information from the papers in his hands.

Jaehyun, the boy whose body Baekhyun would take, had been found in the woods with his wrists cut and a smaller cut on his throat, as if he had started there but had made up his mind and had turned to his wrists instead.

The guy had lost so much blood that his heartbeat had only been faint, his body had been about to give in, but they had found him just in time. And they had taken him in and kept his body alive. They had stitched up the wounds and cleaned them until they had no longer been bleeding, and now they were nothing but dark red scars.

They’d be scars Baekhyun would be carrying around until his life would end, but he was willing to do that. He would give anything to get himself a home, and he was lucky enough that the guy was nothing but stunning otherwise. His face was flawless, with no birthmarks to be found, and his mouth, with its m-shaped upper lip, was plump even when drained of colour.

Baekhyun especially loved the guy’s collar bones and the slimness of his waist that led to equally beautiful hipbones. The guy had strong thighs too, and Baekhyun was reminded of his angelic form when he looked at him. It really felt like coming home in that sense, going back to who he used to be, but slightly different to fit the way his personality was different now too.

Short, ugly fingers traced the long slender ones that would soon be his own, and Baekhyun found himself emerged in this, knowing that this would be the only chance he’d get to watch his new self through the eyes of someone else.

Jaehyun only had a weak pulse, Baekhyun could hear its soft pitter-patter through the beeping of the machine, and he had to admit that right now the body looked more dead than alive, but he knew it was alive enough for him to take over. And then those lips would regain their colour, the heartbeat would pick up again and those fingers would start moving.

“Remember, Baekhyun, this decision is a final one,” Tae-ho told him, “you have been granted the permission to leave, but that also means that there will be no possibility to return. And, more important than that, really, is that you have been allowed to leave in order to live a mortal life and a mortal life only. That means you are not allowed to do demon business. You will live like a mortal and die like a mortal.”

Baekhyun rolled his eyes at the whole speech, “I _know_ , Tae, I’ve only been begging for this since Lucifer considered me a close enough friend to fuck me. I know the deal,” he let go of Jaehyun’s hand and trailed his eyes back up at the guy’s face. Knowing this would be him, that soon he’d look like that, it made Baekhyun sigh longingly.

“It will be mine alone, right? I can’t take another one where there’s constant whining in the back of my mind,” Baekhyun asked, just to be sure. He would be hell’s worst nightmare if that were to happen again, honestly.  

Tae-ho nodded as he walked to the other side of the bed, “yes. He is already brain-dead, we’re keeping his body alive by providing it with oxygen, as you can tell. The moment you possess him, there won’t be need for that anymore.”

Baekhyun hummed while he kept inspecting the body in front of him, feeling Tae-ho’s eyes on him as he did. His fingers traced down the slightly toned stomach until they reached the cloth that covered the lower half of Jaehyun’s body. He took a hold of it and lifted it up high enough so he could glance at what was hidden underneath.

He chuckled pleasantly as his eyes roamed for a second before he dropped the cloth again and looked up at Tae-ho. “Well, I’m definitely not disappointed,” he admitted, “it’s about a hundred times better than the body I have now.”

Of course that was a bit of an exaggeration. Baekhyun knew he looked good, knew he was desirable, but he didn’t feel like himself, which made it hard to look at himself and feel at home in his skin. His host body was too tough, too muscular and manly. Any demon would love to swap, but Baekhyun missed the softness, missed a representation of the part of him that preferred heaven over hell.

“Does that mean you’re doing it?” Tae-ho asked him, looking at Baekhyun with a playful grin, “the baddest one around is really going to give up all this freedom and power to live a dull mortal life?” He didn’t have to say it for Baekhyun to know the decision confused Tae-ho. And Baekhyun got why he was confused. After all he had spent the past ten years of his demon life living like the demon he was.

He had done the dirtiest things imaginable, had killed for the fun of it, and over the years he had built up a name for himself. People either wanted to be with him, or they wanted to be him, and Baekhyun had loved the attention. Most demons knew about him, knew his reputation, and he figured that was part of why he had been allowed to leave.

It wasn’t just because he was friendly with Lucifer himself that he had been allowed to get out, it was more than that. Baekhyun had come to realise that if you steal the spotlight, the ones higher up would get pissed off at you for trying to outshine them. It had worked out pretty well for him in the end, getting him what he wanted, but it could have gotten him killed as well.

“Have you forgotten I’m a fallen one?” Baekhyun replied, “I’m nothing but pure innocence having lost its way. You don’t know me at all, Tae, can’t you see how innocent I look?” Baekhyun had changed his voice, trying to sound like that dirty perverted priest that he had killed only a few weeks ago. The man had begged for his life, but Baekhyun hadn’t shown mercy. Whatever god the priest had been praying to had left him years before.

The imitation made Tae-ho laugh, and he stared at Baekhyun intently as he used a tone much dirtier, his mind clearly on other things, “no, I can’t. I can only see the way you looked when I bent you over Lucifer’s desk that night we managed to slip into his place.”

Baekhyun let his mouth drop open in fake shock and he clutched at his chest as he gasped, “how dare you talk to me like that! I’m pure angel blood!” Which was a blatant lie, and both of them knew it. Baekhyun had lost that purity a handful of decades ago, but that didn’t mean he no longer was an angel.

He let the façade slip quickly after though, knowing that no matter how much of that was left, it was now hidden away, covered up by his demon grin, which he showed to Tae-ho as he thought back to that day. “Really though, who would have thought that Lucifer would have a freaking desk. How domestic.”

Tae-ho laughed, after which a silence fell around them, one a little less comfortable now. As Baekhyun stared at Jaehyun’s face again he could feel Tae-ho’s eyes on him, something he was pretty used to. After all, Baekhyun knew how Tae-ho felt about him, knew it was much more than he should feel, because Baekhyun couldn’t return it. They had been close friends, had slept together too often to count, but it had never been more than just convenient for him. It hadn’t been the same for Tae-ho, though.

He knew it hadn’t been fair of him to play with someone who had feelings for him, but Tae-ho should have known better too. He was a demon himself, he knew feelings never did anyone any good in hell, and that falling for a fellow demon was just setting yourself up for disaster. Maybe Tae-ho had held on to the knowledge that Baekhyun wasn’t a demon by birth, that he had once been an angel whose whole life had revolved around love, but even back then Baekhyun had been different.

Baekhyun had never been in love. Not as an angel, but especially not as a demon. He had never felt what other angels had described as ‘a fire of light’ awakening inside of him. He had never felt his heartbeat change while watching someone, and that was pretty much a miracle seen as angels fell in love countless times over the span of their lives. But he hadn’t, not even once.

“You know, I’m going to miss having you around, Baek,” Tae-ho said quietly, his voice having lost its playfulness, and Baekhyun had to force himself not to look up at him and see the look in his friend’s eyes. He knew what he’d see there, and he wouldn’t be able to deal with it.

“Don’t do that,” he begged, “it’s already hard enough having to say goodbye. Besides, you can always come visit me, right?” he suggested then, knowing he was only trying to be polite. They both knew that wasn’t possible. Not really.

“Yeah, once in a while, probably,” Tao-ho answered, even though he should have known better than to promise. It would be dangerous for him, and with Baekhyun not allowed to use his powers, there wouldn’t be much left for them to do together, anyway. He’d be a bore to his friend, he’d be nothing like the Baekhyun he was now, which was exactly what he wanted.

He’d always choose this over everything; a mortal life he knew nothing about. It could turn out to be a disaster, but still Baekhyun wouldn’t give up this chance. About one thing he was positive, and that was that he couldn’t live like this for all eternity. He was already tired, and it had only been years.

All Baekhyun wanted was to disappear, to finally feel alive and then die in peace. He didn’t want forever and he didn’t want stupid powers. All he wanted was to fall in love once, just once, and then to become nothing.

Baekhyun swallowed while his fingers followed the scar on Jaehyun’s neck, his mind once again clear. Then he straightened himself again, finally meeting Tae-ho’s eyes. “Alright,” he spoke, “tell them I’ve decided... I’m doing it.”

~

The whole changing host thing wasn’t exactly difficult, but there were a few essential things that could make it even less of a pain in the ass. For one, in order for it to be successful the host body had to be alive, and that was also the part where things got tricky.

Because that meant that if they would pull the plug of the machine too quickly, Jaehyun’s body would die before Baekhyun could possess it, but if they pulled the plug too late, then whatever was left of Jaehyun would be stuck in his body with him. And Baekhyun really did not want that.

He had experienced it twice before, but that had been two times too many. The worst one was where he had spent a week in a body with its host’s soul still present in his mind, and it had been the most annoying week of his life. The guy had been a whiny little shit, his voice loud and unpleasant, and no matter what Baekhyun had done, he hadn’t been able to ignore it.  

God, living with two voices in just one head was no way of living, and although Baekhyun had really liked the body he had been in, he had given it up and killed the guy for having been so goddamn awful. It hadn’t been one of his finest moments, but really, if anyone else had been in his shoes they would have done the same.

It would be a shame if this body turned out to be the same, because Baekhyun had already grown quite fond of it. He wanted this to work, he really did, and so he said a little prayer after he had said his goodbyes. He knew it was quite stupid, a demon praying, but whatever. Baekhyun found solace in it, and that’s why he did it.

Tae-ho was waiting for him at the bed, and for a moment Baekhyun wondered if he had left that room at all since they had been in there last. He walked up to his friend and touched his arm when he reached him, but Tae-ho didn’t look up at him.

Baekhyun couldn’t tell whether he was only busy, or if he was angry at him for the fact that he was leaving him, and it made him frown. This might be the last time they’d see each other, and Baekhyun wanted to make sure he left without any unfinished business.

He knew this was the moment he’d have to tell Tae-ho, knew this was the only time he’d be able to bring it up, and he had to in order to make sure Tae-ho would not be left behind thinking ‘what if I had just told him’.

“I’m sorry,” Baekhyun said, sounding absolutely serious about it, and that was why Tae-ho finally turned his head and looked at him. There was surprise on his face, but Baekhyun wasn’t going to let him open his mouth the way he was clearly planning to, “I couldn’t be what you wanted me to be. I never really acknowledged it, but I know how you felt about me, and I’m sorry I couldn’t return that.”

Tae-ho still looked caught off guard, but Baekhyun wouldn’t give him time to compose himself. He tiptoed up to press a soft kiss to his friend’s cheek before he continued, “but thank you for everything you’ve done for me. For being my friend and for caring for me the way you did. I will never forget it.”

He knew he was being unusually soft, letting his guard down for probably the first time around Tae-ho. It was why his friend was speechless, why he couldn’t do much more than pull Baekhyun in a hug, and this once Baekhyun let him. He wasn’t exactly used to hugs, they didn’t fit his image, reminded him of heaven too much, but this was a goodbye.

“You better not fuck this up,” Baekhyun warned him then, his voice having lost most of its seriousness now, because he didn’t want to make this moment too heavy. Baekhyun hated goodbyes.

“If I end up with a voice in my head I will come back to haunt you,” he punched Tae-ho’s arm when he pulled away from their embrace, and he finally saw his friend smile again. Good.

“Wouldn’t want that now, would I? I know how ruthless you can be when you’re pissed off,” Tae-ho said before he stepped aside to get everything ready. Baekhyun let him, knowing that it was best to get some space between them already. He’d have to get used to being alone soon enough.

Baekhyun turned to Jaehyun instead of watching Tae-ho work, and when he stepped closer he leaned in close to the guy’s face, smiling as he said, “heard me? You better give me space, boy.” He stepped back a moment later, deciding it was best if he started focusing now. After all this was his big moment. It would be the last time he’d switch hosts.

Usually it was easy, the changing bodies part, but permanently possessing a body was a little different. He knew that once he was in Jaehyun’s body he would be locked in. It would be final this time. Whatever would happen to him would happen, and that was it.

“We’re ready,” Tae-ho brought Baekhyun out of his focus some time later, his voice loud and clear, and Baekhyun nodded when he turned to face him. Their eyes met, Baekhyun nodded, and then, slowly, he walked up to the second bed next to Jaehyun’s, climbed on it and lay down.

It would be easier that way, easier than standing up, and he let Tae-ho strap him in just to be sure his current host body would stay in place. He couldn’t have anything go wrong this time. Tied down like this it was easier for Baekhyun to feel, to pay attention to his whole being, and that helped him connect better. It would be an easier transfer, a less worrisome one as well.

Even though he could start the process straight away, especially now that he was tied down, he wanted to wait for Tae-ho to tell him it was okay. They had to get ready to end the life-support, after all.

His sign came only seconds later, when his friend leaned over him, one hand cupping Baekhyun’s right cheek, and he smiled at him once more, “good luck, Baek. You can do it.” Then his face disappeared from view and Baekhyun could only hear him as he walked around, quietly discussing with the other demons that were there to help too.

“Alright, I’m going to count down now,” Tae-ho said, “are you ready?” he asked, to which Baekhyun only nodded. And then Tae-ho started, “okay. In three, two, one…”

Baekhyun closed his eyes, imagined he was floating, and then he slowly started to breathe in. While he did, he tried to feel his toes, becoming aware of how his soul let go of the hold it had on this body. Bit by bit he felt himself get disentangled from the flesh, until he was completely loose and all of him travelled upwards, to the mouth he had used to talk, to kiss, to fuck.

This was the moment Baekhyun always loved the most, the freedom of being outside of a host body, a place where neither angel nor demon were able to live, but where you’d feel so weightless and carefree that it would be almost okay to never feel anything else again.

But he wouldn’t die like that.

He easily found his way to Jaehyun’s body, and knowing the most difficult part was over now, he slipped into his new host rather comfortably. He breathed out this time, pushing himself throughout every part of Jaehyun’s body. The deeper he went, the more he became aware of his surroundings again. There was the soft sound of a beeping noise that grew louder by the second, the sensation of coldness pricking him, and then eventually, his lungs expanding to gasp for air.

He shot up, sitting up as he inhaled sharply, the coldness now much more apparent. He was freezing, his whole body aching, but his neck and wrists were especially painful, “god, fuck,” he cursed out loud, hating the pain already. He paused though, having heard his voice, and he blinked as he spoke again, “did that work? No complications?”

His voice was smooth, so much softer than he had imagined Jaehyun to sound, and it surprised him. Over the years he had spoken mostly through voices that were a lot deeper, a lot rougher too, but this one was a lot closer to his own. It sounded pretty close to what he used to sound like back when he had been an angel, and for a moment he wondered if this guy had been his human form all this time and he had been lucky enough to find him.

Tae-ho looked at him curiously, stepping a little closer, “Baekhyun?” he asked, and Baekhyun frowned, “what? Of course it’s me, you dipshit, did you not see me enter this body?” he huffed and threw his legs over the side of the bed, not caring he was practically naked apart from the thin sheet that was still covering his lap.

He watched his old host body in the other bed, lying still and motionless, devoid of any emotion. It looked like an awful host body now that he felt what it was like being in this one. He watched his hands, the fingers he had admired only yesterday, now move on their own accord. He stared down at his hipbones, at his thighs, and smiled, “holy shit.”

Tae-ho was still staring at him, and when Baekhyun jumped off the bed and started laughing, he seemed to relax a little more. At least his laugh was the same. “Everything should be fine,” his friend explained as Baekhyun walked to the mirror to look at himself, “do you hear anything at all up there?”  

Baekhyun tried to tune in and listen for another voice, but there was nothing there. “No,” he replied as he stared at his own face now. He couldn’t deny that this body looked good on him, and he couldn’t wait to make it his own. Cut the hair a little, maybe dye it. A little make-up for his eyes, something sexy to cover those scars. Soon it would really be him.

“Oh shit,” he laughed when he turned sideways, still staring at himself in the mirror, “I’ve got ass.” He let his hands slide past his behind, feeling himself up, and he grinned, “oh, I’d totally do me,” which got Tae-ho to laugh at him.

“It really is you,” his friend stated again, and as he spoke Baekhyun closed his eyes and brought out himself a little more. When he opened his eyes again and stared at the bright circle of light filled with black, the eyes of a fallen one, he truly felt like himself. If only he could live like that, showing himself at all times the way he so longed to, but this was enough. He’d get to live like everyone else, he’d get to find his own place in the world.

“Of course it is,” Baekhyun said before he quickly blinked himself back again, revealing soft brown eyes that were nothing like his own. He sighed, “so, this is it, huh? Now I wait for death like a real mortal.” He smiled, but even though he was joking about it, he was relieved. “Where am I going to end up?”

Tae-ho turned to the paperwork on the table, flipping through some things, and Baekhyun slowly walked up to check the papers along with him. “Jaehyun lived in Anyang, South Korea. Now it may not be best to go back there, unless you plan on living like Jaehyun instead of Baekhyun, which I’m sure you won’t, so what about something nearby? Seoul is not too far away and with its 10 million citizens you should be pretty untraceable,” Tae-ho suggested, and Baekhyun hummed.

“No, I’m not going to live like Jaehyun. That guy is dead,” he agreed, “I’m Baekhyun, so let me go to Seoul.” Tae-ho nodded along while he wrote it down.

“Alright, Seoul it is,” his friend said as he handed Baekhyun the needle. Baekhyun knew what it was for, knew it was needed to seal his fate, and without thinking twice about it he pricked himself in his thumb, brought the drop of blood to the paper, and signed.


	2. Bumping Into You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His heart was in his throat, threatening to spill out, and he didn’t understand why. The guy in front of him was staring at him so intently, eyes flitting over Baekhyun’s face, and Baekhyun felt frozen in place as his mind suddenly appeared to be a mess of thoughts. He couldn’t get things straight, had completely forgotten any words he could use, until he finally got a grasp on one of them, “Chanyeol.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt like posting the second one already because I needed something lighter in this whole Baekhyun situation. I love my boy too much for this <3

__

 

**_One year later_ **

 

“Baekhyun! Get me another whiskey, would ya? No ice,” the man in front of him yelled over the music. He could be loud, fucking loud, and Baekhyun truly hated the asshole for that reason along with a handful of other things.

The man was too touchy, had too big of a mouth and didn’t tip well enough, and still he dared to yell at Baekhyun as if he was a dog that needed to obey its owner. It pissed Baekhyun off, yet he made the man another whiskey. And although he tried to serve it quickly, he couldn’t stop the hand curling around his wrist.

“When does your shift end?” the man asked, still way too fucking loud, and Baekhyun felt shivers run down his spine at the suggestion behind those words. Ew, fuck no. Never. He didn’t know what kind of plans this man had, but quite frankly Baekhyun did not want to find out.

He pulled his hand back and glared at the man in front of him as he growled, “go to hell.” It was funny, really, because he knew that hell would be exactly where this guy would end up once his life would come to an end. However, the point was that Baekhyun kind of wished for that moment to be right now.

It was absolutely hilarious, because in another life Baekhyun would have already taken care of this guy. Either by taking him home or with a quick snap of his neck. But now that Baekhyun was human he did neither of those things. He wasn’t here for sex and he wasn’t allowed to use his powers. Those were the two deals he had, with himself and with Lucifer, and so he’d have to deal with this the way a human would.

“What the fuck did you just say?” the guy demanded, his voice now angry, and a vein had burst in his forehead, giving him a look fit for a demon. Baekhyun wasn’t afraid though, he had seen worse, but just as he wanted to open his mouth again to repeat his damn sentence, his boss put a hand on his shoulder and jumped in.

“Now let’s not take things too far, Nam-gi. Wouldn’t want to kick you out for overstepping any boundaries,” Minseok spoke calmly, clearly on Baekhyun’s side, and that made his anger seep away slowly but surely. He should have known better, he knew that, but to have Minseok be on his side despite that felt good.

Honestly, Baekhyun had learnt a lot from his job at the bar, and usually he knew when to shut up and let the drunk customers say the shit they wanted to, but sometimes it was just a little too much. Tonight was one of those nights.

He had already dropped a glass of wine earlier on during his shift and it had left him feeling a little on edge. Something felt off, as if there was something in the air even though Baekhyun didn’t know what it was. So, yeah, he had been tense and annoyed, and this guy had been the final straw.

The man, apparently named Nam-gi, grumbled loudly, trying to form some coherent protest, but he failed and grabbed his glass before turning away and leaving the bar behind. Baekhyun finally relaxed, turning to Minseok to express his gratitude, and he even made a quick bow, “thank you, Minseok. He wouldn’t stop,” he explained, “I know I shouldn’t have said anything, I know that, but he-“

“It’s okay,” Minseok smiled softly, his kindness now again overruling the bossy attitude that always looked so good on him, “I get it. Nam-gi is a handful when he’s drunk.” His boss, and friend, stared at him before he placed a hand on Baekhyun’s arm again, “but it isn’t hard to see that you’re on edge. Is something wrong?”

If others could see it then it must be true, but when Baekhyun thought of it he couldn’t make sense of it. Nothing was wrong, nothing that he knew of anyway, and yet he felt restless. Maybe his host body wasn’t feeling well, maybe he was getting ill. He had never gone through anything like a fever, but he could imagine that it wasn’t nice.

Baekhyun took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh, “yes, no, I mean…” he trailed off, a frown forming in his forehead, “I don’t get what’s wrong, but I’m feeling really strange.” He could feel Minseok’s worried eyes on him, so he tried to fix it a little, “it’s okay, though. I’ll just go to bed early tonight and I’ll be fine.” He shrugged it off, but his boss wasn’t going to let it slip.

“Go home then,” Minseok suggested, no anger in his words as he said it. He went on when he could tell Baekhyun was about to protest, laughing a little at the face he was making, “oh come on, you’d be done in an hour anyway, and I’m not sure if you can tell, but it’s not that busy tonight.” They were good arguments, of course, and Baekhyun was tempted to give in, but he had a better argument still.

“I know, but-,” he paused, really not wanting to say this, but he went on anyway. “You know I need the money…” Baekhyun said, voice a little lower so no one else would hear as he talked about his situation. One that didn’t need more words for Minseok to understand.

Minseok knew he didn’t have a lot to live on, that he had a crap place to call his home. After all, Baekhyun had needed to start at the bottom, having owned nothing when he first came to Seoul. He needed this job to survive. If it hadn’t been for Minseok who had taken a chance with him, Baekhyun would still be living out on the streets right now.

In the end it had taken him three months to find a job, with everyone turning him down because of his lack of working experience. A twenty-six year old without any experience at all? What the hell had he done all his life? It had been a fair question to ask, and Baekhyun could have lied and said he had plenty of experience, but he had wanted to do this the right way.

And then he had found Minseok’s bar, purely by accident. He had walked in to get a drink and had walked out no longer unemployed, and Baekhyun had been confused and sure he had dreamt it all up until he had actually worked his first shift and gotten paid for it.  

There had been this look in the man’s eyes, as if he understood Baekhyun, almost as if he _knew_ what Baekhyun was, and he had offered him a job on the spot. It had been crazy, but Baekhyun had been there ever since, and he was enjoying himself thoroughly.

“Don’t worry about that. Next week people will get their pay checks for the month and the place will be packed again. I’ll make sure to add an extra hour to your schedule then, alright?” Minseok smiled at him again, and Baekhyun couldn’t do anything but sigh and give in. He knew his boss wasn’t going to drop it, so he better just accept it already.

“Alright. But if you make up your mind I’m just a phonecall away, you know,” Baekhyun said while he started undoing his leather apron with nimble fingers. He folded it up and put it away before he fixed the collar of his black dress shirt, doing up some of the buttons. No need to show off for tips anymore…

“Of course,” Minseok replied, sounding very much like he really wouldn’t call him even if it indeed got busier, and so Baekhyun rolled his eyes, “I’m going to get my stuff. See you tomorrow.” He was about to turn around to walk to the staff room in the back, but Minseok stopped him by calling out his name.

“Hey, Baekhyun?” He asked, and Baekhyun stopped and turned his upper body to look back at his boss, who looked pretty amused by the thoughts in his mind that then spilled from his lips as well, “please find a way to relax. Like, take a bath or get laid or something.” He laughed after that, and Baekhyun was this close to giving him the middle finger, but he had to remind himself that friends or not, Minseok was still his boss.

He didn’t bother replying, instead turning back around so he could walk away before he did do something stupid enough to get himself fired, and he settled on just grumbling to himself while he got his coat and shrugged it on.

“Get laid?” he huffed, “I wish… It’s been too fucking long, but if I have to choose between that asshole or nothing, I’d rather not.” Really, he’d rather stay away from sex for the rest of his life than sleep with that creep. He had been there, done that, and it wasn’t what he wanted to do any longer.

Baekhyun rubbed his face for a moment and then got out his phone and earplugs, sticking one inside his ear before he searched for a good playlist, “and take a bath? What, he thinks my apartment has any room for that?” he snorted at his own comment before he put his phone in his pocket and put the hood of his coat up over his head. Ready to go.

After he swung his bag over his shoulder he made his way to the back door, where the security guard let him pass, opening the backdoor that led him outside. In the alley behind the bar were a few smokers, huddled up together in the cold November air, and Baekhyun politely nodded his head in their direction before he walked the other way, back to the street.

It was only a little after one o’clock, the night still young, and so there were plenty of people still outside. Across the street he spotted a group of girls, laughing and singing songs, so blatantly unaware of all the boys that had stopped to turn their heads. Baekhyun was done playing the game of lust though, and so he hid inside his hood a little deeper to avoid any attention being drawn to him.

Instead of paying attention to anyone else, he turned to himself, feeling like he was in his own little world due to the hood that covered him so well. He hummed along to the song that played in his ear, his nose pressed into the fabric of his coat, and for the first time that night he felt kind of content.

These were the moments he appreciated living a mortal life the most. He loved finding joy in small things, the things most demons and angels found pointless and unnecessary. They wouldn’t understand how much Baekhyun longed for these things, how it was a relief for him to not always have to think about the bigger picture. It was peaceful, and only a little mundane.

Back when he had been an angel, although Baekhyun remembered very little of it, he had always been looking out for ways to help, for people to give his love to, and it had made him forget about himself. There had always been that higher power, things bigger than him that matter more, and so he had lived a selfless life up to the moment where he had fallen down and Lucifer had taken him in.

It had been a shock at first, and Baekhyun had cried and cried, longing to fly back up. But his wings had burned off, leaving nothing but two ugly scars on his back. Going from an angel to a fallen angel, a demon, it was like going from day to night in a mere second.

It had taken time, years, for Baekhyun to get used to the fact that he was no longer an angel. He had needed to change everything he knew, had to stop living for love and start fighting for life. People had hurt him, had taken advantage of his softness, and it had toughened Baekhyun up very quickly. One he had turned a switch, he had been unstoppable.

As a demon, a real demon without letting the angel in him show, all he had done was think about himself. He had been selfish, had taken whatever he wanted whenever he wanted without regret, the way those first demons had treated him.

He had lived a sinful life, one that his father up in heaven wouldn’t have been proud off, even though there had been moments where the angel inside of him rang very clear. Still, a kill was a kill even if it was someone who without a doubt deserved to die.

It was why Baekhyun had longed for this mortal life, to live like a human being, because for humans there was a whole array of feelings in between those two extremes. There were good people who were closer to angels than demons and there were assholes who would never come near heaven even a little bit, but there were also those in between. The ones who loved but were also selfish, the ones who lived in the twilight, never on one of both sides.

That was where Baekhyun longed to be. He longed to love, but without losing himself in it, and he longed to be sneaky and bad, but without it colouring his personality. He had come here to find that balance, to enjoy the small things like walking through the night by himself. He had needed this peace of mind, this place where he could be whoever he wanted to be. He had given up immortality for that, and one year in, he found it was worth it.

Seoul was a place bustling with life at all times, no matter day or night, and it was what Baekhyun liked too. No matter what he wanted to do, he could do it at whatever time he pleased. He could decide to go out for coffee at three in the morning and he’d still find an open café within a five mile radius of his apartment. The city was like a beating heart, always alive and always working.

It was more than heaven and hell combined, and Baekhyun truly didn’t understand why so few angels desired nothing more than love, why so few demons could live with nothing but darkness. There was a world out there than none of them seemed to be aware of, and Baekhyun once again felt thankful that he had even gotten a chance at this. If only they knew how much of a pleasure they had done him by sending him out here.

If only they could feel the way he felt, walking in the darkness with love in his heart, a cold nose and the bright tones of music in his ears. How could they not be jealous? How could they not long for this?

He was so lost in the song playing in his ear that he hadn’t noticed how the guy that had been walking past him had stopped and turned around again. In fact, he didn’t actually become aware of him until he heard a voice behind him call out a soft and unsure sounding, “Jaehyun?”

Everything about the voice made Baekhyun freeze, and all he could think was ‘ _no’_ as his body seemed to respond before he could. His instinct to flee was overruling the one that told him to fight, and so he tried to shake it off, make his frozen legs move.

But Baekhyun had made the mistake to pause his singing as he listened to the voice that was calling out the name of the guy whose body he had taken. And even though he had picked it up right away as he started walking again, his frozen limbs somehow listening to his orders, it was too late.

He heard the footsteps behind him come closer, and then a hand curled itself around his arm. A rough pull got Baekhyun to turn around, and it led him to almost stumble right into the stranger, who was staring with wide eyes when Baekhyun finally came to a halt in front of him.

“Jaehyun?” The guy asked again, waiting for a spark of recognition, but Baekhyun only managed to look frightened. Who was this guy? How well did he know Jaehyun? Why was Baekhyun so out of it? This honestly wasn’t like him.

“I’m sorry, I-“ Baekhyun started, stuttering as he was trying to find an excuse. After all, Seoul was a city of millions, it shouldn’t be difficult to make this guy believe he had the wrong person in front of him. How hard could it be to make him believe he wasn’t Jaehyun?

Apparently very difficult, seen as Baekhyun couldn’t find his voice anymore.

His heart was in his throat, threatening to spill out, and he didn’t understand why. The guy in front of him was staring at him so intently, eyes flitting over Baekhyun’s face, and Baekhyun felt frozen in place as his mind suddenly appeared to be a mess of thoughts. He couldn’t get things straight, had completely forgotten any words he could use, until he finally got a grasp on one of them, “Chanyeol.”

He had blurted it out before he could stop it, and apparently this was something he shouldn’t have said, at all. It all went so fast too, the way Baekhyun dug a grave for himself and how that one word, that one name, could make everything come tumbling down.

Something dark and desperate flashed in the brown eyes he was watching, something like relief, and then the boy in front of him fell to his knees. His eyes were still so wide, and Baekhyun could see them well up, “yes. Yes, it’s me Jaehyun, oh my god,” he brought out, stumbling over his words as he choked up, and Baekhyun felt himself panic even more.

Hearing the mentioning of his host’s name though, it made him snap out of it, and as his mind cleared he forced his heartbeat to slow down. It was something he always did when he was in danger, and he had gotten quite good at it too.  

 _Think, Baekhyun, think_. He had to come up with something, he needed a plan. Fast.

Chanyeol had grabbed his hand and was now full on crying, the palm of it pressed to his cheek, and Baekhyun could feel the tears against his skin, falling down his fingers. “I can’t believe- you’re here,” Chanyeol cried out, squeezing the hand a little tighter, but Baekhyun pulled himself free nonetheless.

“I- I’m not Jaehyun,” He spoke forcefully, but his voice was trembling, betraying himself. Goddamnit, why couldn’t he stay focused? He just had to get away, he had to get away and that way he would never have to see this guy again. Why couldn’t he just walk away already? He never had to see Chanyeol again, if he just left already. _Just run away, Baekhyun, run away_.

“My name is Baekhyun, not Jaehyun, so please stand up,” Baekhyun was talking instead. He couldn’t run away, his feet were frozen to the ground again, and instead he offered the guy in front of him his hand, the one he had pulled away only a second ago. For some reason a part of him wanted to help him up.

Maybe this was better. Maybe it was good that he was helping Chanyeol instead of fleeing the scene, because running away would only make this more suspicious. If he ran now, Chanyeol would want to follow, and all Baekhyun wanted was to make Chanyeol let go of him. So maybe words could help. Baekhyun knew how to be persuasive, and he was sure he could make this guy believe him.

Chanyeol took the outstretched hand and pulled himself up quickly, tugging on Baekhyun’s arm at the same time so he couldn’t run off even if he wanted to. He ended up standing closer to Baekhyun than before, only inches away and towering over him slightly, and he stared down at Baekhyun so hard that Baekhyun felt himself shrink even more.

“You’re not Jaehyun?” Chanyeol didn’t sound like he was convinced by that, and Baekhyun couldn’t really blame him for it. “If you’re not him then why do you look exactly like him? And why do you have the exact same voice?” Chanyeol questioned, his voice a bit fiercer now he was this close, his confidence growing, “I’m not crazy, Jae, I know you better than I know myself. It’s you, but god…”

Baekhyun felt his heart skip another beat, and he willed it to fucking stop already. Whoever this Chanyeol was, he had history with Jaehyun, not with Baekhyun, which meant there was no reason for him to respond to the guy in this way.

“I knew you weren’t dead. Everyone else told me to move on, to let you go, and that there was no way you were still alive, but I knew you’d never…” Chanyeol left the sentence unfinished, started a new one, “I never gave up. I can’t believe that at a time where I wasn’t even looking, I found you anyway. I should have known you’d go here, to Seoul, I shouldn’t have wasted so much time back in Anyang.”

Baekhyun averted his eyes, looking away while Chanyeol rambled on, “why did you leave? Why didn’t you just tell me, tell your family? It would have saved us so much pain. You could have sent a letter, anything, but you didn’t.” There was disappointment in Chanyeol’s voice now, and pain, unblemished pain, and it only took Baekhyun a second to realise what it was: heartbreak.

Shit.

That was right, Jaehyun had been in a steady relationship, Baekhyun remembered Tae-ho saying that. He hadn’t specified who that had been with, hadn’t said a name, but it was clear as day now. This Chanyeol, the one who had been looking for Jaehyun, he was the one that had been dating his host.

Shit.  

And now he was here, in Seoul, having found him in a sea of ten million people. But of course he would recognise Baekhyun as Jaehyun, if he had been in love. Baekhyun was pretty sure that once you fell in love you could recognise their face in a crowd of a thousand people. This wasn’t strange, but it was inconvenient still.

As soon as Baekhyun came to that conclusion, that Chanyeol had been Jaehyun’s lover, he also realised how difficult it would be to make the boy believe he wasn’t him. No words would be enough to kill Chanyeol’s hope, and the longer Baekhyun stayed there, the less he did, the more confident Chanyeol got. With every passing second, with every moment Chanyeol kept watching him, Baekhyun would be less believable.

Chanyeol knew Jaehyun, there was no doubt he was checking Baekhyun’s face to find that one mole he knew Jaehyun had, or to spot the wrinkle in his smile as he laughed. Time was running out, and Baekhyun was losing his self-control again.

He tugged his hand out of Chanyeol’s grip and repeated himself, “I’ve told you, I’m not Jaehyun. I’m Baekhyun, and I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tried to sound a little annoyed, to keep himself more composed, because he couldn’t falter again. If he wanted to get away from this then he had to be convincing now. Or maybe…

Maybe he had to be a little mean. Maybe he had to bring out a bit of his demon, even though his heart was begging him not to hurt Chanyeol, and usually Baekhyun would always make decisions based on both his mind _and_ his heart. Then again, Baekhyun wondered if he could really trust his heart right now, because for some silly reason it wanted nothing more than to feel Chanyeol’s hand in his again.

Baekhyun pushed that thought away quickly, realising now that no matter what he felt inside, it wasn’t him. They were just old feelings, stupid and unnecessary, and Baekhyun didn’t need them. They didn’t belong to him anyway. Chanyeol didn’t belong to him.

“Look, maybe you’ve gone a little crazy, alright? Maybe you’ve been looking so much that you’ve lost it and now that you see someone who looks a bit like him, you think you’ve found him,” Baekhyun sure _sounded_ mean. He sounded like he didn’t care at all, which really, he shouldn’t, but inside his chest his heart was aching.

“But Jaehyun, I _know_ -” Chanyeol started again, although his eyes had lost the fire Baekhyun had seen in there before, if only just a little. He was doing a good job of killing whatever hope Chanyeol had found in this brief meeting, and he hated himself for it. He absolutely hated it, yet he kept going. Call it survival.

“It’s Baekhyun,” Baekhyun stopped him mid-sentence, pushing him away slightly. His voice was cold, so cold that he felt shivers all over his back, but his desire to live was stronger, and so Baekhyun continued, “I’m sorry, I’ve tried to be polite, but you don’t seem to listen.”

Chanyeol reached out to touch him again, fingers grazing Baekhyun’s arm as he whispered, “please, don’t-“ the desperation was leaking from his lips, curling around Baekhyun’s heart before it squeezed it together painfully. It hurt, this burning sensation in his chest, and it was what made Baekhyun finally explode, yelling a loud, “stop fucking touching me!” as he stepped back further and raised his arms.

In front of him, Chanyeol deflated, his shoulders dropping as Baekhyun kept stomping on his heart. But Baekhyun wasn’t just doing this for himself. He wasn’t just being selfish. In fact, more than anything he was doing this because he knew that he couldn’t explain to Chanyeol what was going on. He couldn’t say ‘hey, your boyfriend is dead and I have his body now, surprise!’. It would break Chanyeol more than the thought of him still not having found his lover.

Baekhyun was doing this to give Chanyeol back the hope that had been in his eyes the moment he had looked at Baekhyun’s face. And he knew it would return soon enough once Baekhyun had absolutely destroyed the idea of him possibly being Jaehyun. It would come back, and Baekhyun could go and live his life in peace, so he went all out, huffing in disgust as he turned away. “Creep. Go get some help.”

As he walked away he stuffed his hands in his pockets, balling them into fists to lighten the pain he felt in his heart. Chanyeol had been special to Jaehyun. He had been important, and Baekhyun didn’t realise just how much until he found himself locking the door to his apartment behind him only to collapse against it.

These feelings, they weren’t his, but they hit him as if they were. Baekhyun felt his whole body go limp, his legs giving out, and he slid to the floor easily. The sensation of his lungs being pressed together felt like the fire of hell, his constricted breathing like a punishment from Lucifer himself, and he dropped his head on his knees as he let it happen.

Heartbreak.

The emotions that hit him were too strong for him to take, and they washed over him so unexpectedly. He had only been walking home, trying to enjoy the crisp night air. He had not planned on getting his heart broken, especially not like this.

To feel heartbreak, one must fall in love first, and this hadn’t been Baekhyun’s love. So why did he have to deal with the pain? It was unfair.

“Chanyeol,” He breathed out the name, could see his face behind closed lids, and let the tears well up in his eyes. He let them roll down his cheeks until they soaked his sleeves, until his runny nose made it even harder to breathe than before. He broke down over a stranger he knew nothing about, but at the same time felt closer to him than anyone else in his life.

 _Chanyeol_ … Why?


	3. Baby, good night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baekhyun dreams of someone he shouldn't be dreaming about and comes to certain conclusions...  
> ~  
> This was Chanyeol who he thought was beautiful, Chanyeol whose lips he longed to kiss, and he seemed so real too, but at the same time Baekhyun felt like he wasn’t Baekhyun at all. Because although he knew he was dreaming, he couldn’t influence these feelings in his chest. He couldn’t change the situation, couldn’t wake himself up, and so he was stuck just feeling it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [M] rated because of sexual references hehe

**3| Baby, good night**

 

Baekhyun didn’t sleep, not really. He lay in bed sprawled with his arms and legs thrown around him like a starfish, but nothing helped him get tired enough. The most he managed was to doze off from time to time, tricking him into thinking that he was finally falling asleep, but whenever he got to that place in his subconscious that led to sleep, he’d always see Chanyeol’s hurt face and hear his breaking voice, and he’d instantly wake up again. It was torture, sweet torture.

To Baekhyun it was worse than staying awake, to be honest, and so Baekhyun got up around five o’clock, after only three hours of tossing and turning. He decided it would be best to get himself a cup of tea. He had found how it often got him to calm down, because it got his body to stay warm and it slowed down his heartbeat, and so on most sleepless nights he’d get himself a cup of tea and half an hour later he’d be sleeping soundly.

As he reached out for a mug Baekhyun noticed the way his hands were trembling, and to his surprise he almost dropped it, his quick reflexes being the only thing stopping the ceramic from shattering to pieces on the ground. He stared at his hands after he had caught it, the way the cup was still shaking even now that it was safe again in two hands.

He quickly set the mug on the counter, taking a moment to stop his racing heart before he’d pick up the kettle with hot boiling water. The last thing he wanted was to drop that thing too, to create more scars on his body than he already had. The fear helped Baekhyun to just focus on the tea, to remember the temperature of the water. He was so focused on those things that he temporarily forgot anything else that had been on his mind. It was nice. If only he could have kept himself distracted.

Holding the mug, now filled with warm camomile tea, with both hands he walked to the windowsill, where he had created a little nook for himself. The space was just big enough to sit on, and if Baekhyun wrapped himself in blankets and closed the curtains behind his back it was enough to make himself feel like he was the only person in the world.

From his little hiding spot he could see the world below, the never-ending life of Seoul illuminated by the faint light of the red neon sign belonging to the restaurant across the street. The sound of footsteps, cats fighting and the shadows of an occasional car passing by through this deserted part of the neighbourhood. There was so much to see, even here, and Baekhyun liked watching the world from up there.

Often when he sat there, he’d ponder whether he had made the right choice by taking Jaehyun’s body. He’d sway between ‘yes’ and ‘no’, always feeling slightly disappointed, because after one year on earth like this, he still hadn’t fulfilled his wish. He hadn’t achieved his goal, hadn’t found a love he so longed for.

Sure, there had been guys and girls he had been with, all in the hopes to find more than sexual attraction, but old habits had been hard to shake and Baekhyun had always gone for people that either weren’t interested in more or turned out to be pretty shallow. One girl had been beautiful, and Baekhyun had really tried with her, but she had lacked personality. There had been nothing there, nothing interesting or fun, and he had broken it off before she could fall in love.

With a sigh Baekhyun tipped his head against the window, feeling the cold glass against his forehead and the warmth of the tea against his chin. It was almost a hilarious metaphor for how he was always stuck between cold and hot, heaven and hell, always stuck between good and bad.

Even with Chanyeol.

Seeing that beautiful boy, who really shouldn’t have seen Baekhyun, on his knees with a desperation in his eyes that Baekhyun so longed to feel, it had been breathtaking to see up close. Still, Baekhyun knew it was too dangerous, he knew he had made the right decision by walking away from him, but that wasn’t the point. It wasn’t why Baekhyun felt so annoyed right now.

He felt annoyed because he could have either completely burned him to the ground, the way a demon would have, or he could have pretended he was Jaehyun, the way an angel would have, but he hadn’t. He had done a bit of both, and he knew how it had probably been weird to Chanyeol the way he had changed so quickly, or so Baekhyun worried. He had gone from kind to awful in barely a second, but he couldn’t help it.

He had been scared.

Baekhyun had been frightened. He had been so afraid that this Chanyeol would have found out the truth about him being Jaehyun, afraid of what the guy could do now that he had seen Baekhyun out there, and even more scared he’d eventually find out what Baekhyun was. That he was a fallen one.

It wasn’t like humans weren’t allowed to know those things, not like they’d kill someone for finding out the truth. The rules weren’t that strict anymore, not since angels and demons were common in movies and literature anyway.  

Baekhyun knew there were even mortals that were dating angels, demons and fallen ones, like it was no big deal at all. It wasn’t like Baekhyun worried for Chanyeol’s life and that’s why he didn’t want him to find out. Because Baekhyun was here for love. He’d end up being a fallen one dating a mortal, hopefully, so that wasn’t it either.

The thing was that Baekhyun just didn’t want others to know about it. He wanted to keep that part of him hidden, because in the end he had left that part of himself behind. Baekhyun had given it all up, and if anyone around him would find out what he was then things would be very different for him. They’d treat him differently, so no, Chanyeol couldn’t ever find out. If Baekhyun would ever see him again, that was.

Baekhyun sipped his tea with closed eyes, trying to shake the thought of the guy off his mind. Why was he still thinking about him? After all, he was gone now. Baekhyun had managed to get away from him, which meant that he had no reason to worry now, so why couldn’t he stop thinking about him? That stupid, desperate boy. That lovesick puppy that had fallen to his knees upon seeing him.

Who had this Jaehyun been to hurt someone so pure, such a gentle soul? How blind and ungrateful had he been to take his own life and leave this boy with a broken heart? Without a note, without a proper explanation… how could anyone do that? Baekhyun felt bad for him, he actually did, and he wished he could make it better, but he couldn’t. His presence would only make things worse for Chanyeol, so he had to stay away.

But Baekhyun felt hopeful too, because today had been the first day he got to experience love this up close. Sure, he had seen Minseok and Kyungsoo together, had seen the way they looked at each other, but to feel someone look at him like that… that had been new. No matter the fact that it hadn’t actually been meant for him, he had felt it, and that had been important.

Because Baekhyun longed to find love more than anything. He craved it, had been craving it for so long, and to feel it even a little bit gave him the hope he needed to look for it again. Love could be so beautiful, love could be worth the whole world, but as Baekhyun thought of that his smile slowly slipped away.

He was positive Chanyeol felt like love was worth the whole world, but he was alone in it. That feeling, it hadn’t been mutual, it hadn’t been the same for Jaehyun, and that was the bitter truth.

Baekhyun longed to find love more than anything, but if he were to fall for someone like Jaehyun, who would cast his love aside without thinking about how it could make him feel, then he’d rather die. He’d much rather leave this all behind than to find out love was nothing like he had dreamed it to be. Like everyone had made it to be.

Sure, there were plenty of people who could live with lust and nothing but lust alone, and maybe Jaehyun had been one of them, but not Baekhyun. Baekhyun had been dreaming of love since he was little, since he had watched the angels around him lose their hearts time and time again. Even once he had fallen he had never lost those feelings. He had always hidden those thoughts in a tiny box inside his heart as it had turned black during his time in hell, but they had been there nonetheless.

And now, now he was finally breathing again. The darkness was clearing up bit by bit, and sometimes he’d allow himself to take a tiny peek into that box he kept hidden, and dream of what could be. He had been waiting for decades, and to get disappointed after so long, honestly, Baekhyun would really rather die.

Did Chanyeol have the same ideas about love as him? Did he know the feeling that Baekhyun was dying to experience? Did he think it was the most amazing thing to ever happen in life, or was he disappointed too? Had he felt like Jaehyun had been ‘the one’ or had he had his doubts? Baekhyun had so many questions about everything, and he wished he could ask them, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t ask Chanyeol.

Slowly, with the warm mug still pressed to his chest, Baekhyun started to slip into a dream again. Soft and warm and lost in so many thoughts it was easy to go under, to have everything fade out around him, to submerge himself into another world.

It was a place where he opened his eyes to brightness, to the sun on his face and even more warmth surrounding him on all sides. It was a peaceful place, a place where he felt like he was floating on clouds, and he smiled as he fully opened his eyes, now more used to the light that had been blinding him at first.

As he took in his surroundings, he noticed how right next to him was a dark ruffle of hair, hiding two closed eyes of which the lashes were dark, fanned against flushed cheeks. He was staring at skin that looked smooth and pale, lips that were a colour pink that Baekhyun found unable to name, and all he could think was ‘ _soft’._

Baekhyun’s heart felt warm and full, his body light, but it wasn’t until the eyes of the person in front of him opened that he fully realised what was happening.

“Hey,” a groggy voice filled his ears, but the sound was still beautiful, and Baekhyun hated that, because this was Chanyeol who he had been watching. Chanyeol who lay curled up against him, an arm slung over Baekhyun’s waist, in a bed that Baekhyun didn’t recognise.

This was Chanyeol who he thought was beautiful, Chanyeol whose lips he longed to kiss, and he seemed so real too, but at the same time Baekhyun felt like he wasn’t Baekhyun at all. Because although he knew he was dreaming, he couldn’t influence these feelings in his chest. He couldn’t change the situation, couldn’t wake himself up, and so he was stuck just feeling it.

Chanyeol smiled at him after the brief greeting, and he blinked himself awake more as he snuggled a little closer. He was so close that Baekhyun could smell him, could smell his bodywash as if he had just taken a shower, and it really wasn’t funny the way Baekhyun’s heart picked up speed. Chanyeol smelled like the freshness of spring and all Baekhyun wanted was to bury his nose in the taller one’s hair, and so he did.

He let himself breathe in the smell a little deeper, finding more of Chanyeol’s scent the deeper he pressed his nose. Goddamn perfect. His eyes squeezed shut, and he felt a moment of blissfulness, where it would be okay if he stayed like this forever, but this was only a dream, and that meant there would be a rude awakening.

“Jaehyun,” Chanyeol murmured against his chest, “I don’t want to get up. Can’t we just stay here?” Baekhyun felt the hand that was curled around his waist now gripping onto his shirt, and for another second he stayed in that perfect little bubble that was being pricked with a needle now. Because Baekhyun was slowly becoming aware of how this wasn’t just a dream.

“I don’t think I can walk anyway,” Chanyeol laughed, the sound of it vibrating against Baekhyun’s chest, and then soft lips pressed a tiny kiss just above the collar of his shirt.

Pop.

This wasn’t a dream, it was a memory. Jaehyun’s memory, one that had been strong enough to become a part of him, one strong enough to linger once his soul had left, and Baekhyun didn’t understand what that meant.

Baekhyun paused for a moment as the lips against this collarbone kept pressing soft kisses to his skin, and he tried really hard to listen for a voice. Had he been wrong at first? Had Jaehyun lingered behind in this body? Maybe he had been quietly watching to make sure Baekhyun didn’t know he was there, but Baekhyun was pretty sure if that were true then he would have figured that out when he met Chanyeol. If Jaehyun had been there, he would have come out of hiding once Chanyeol had asked for him.

No, Baekhyun figured this wasn’t his host playing with his mind. The body had been empty once Baekhyun had possessed it. No soul could stay quiet for more than a year, and that only left one possibility: it meant that Jaehyun’s love for Chanyeol wasn’t as superficial as Baekhyun had thought.

It meant that his love was actually a deep-rooted feeling that, now that Baekhyun belonged to this body, he could still feel in its core even when Jaehyun’s soul was no longer there.

He had thought that Jaehyun couldn’t possibly have cared, because why else would he have left like that, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe he had loved Chanyeol too much. Too much to break him like that, to leave him with that finality. Maybe he knew that if he left without a warning, Chanyeol would continue looking for him, would hold that same love with him while he did, and somehow that made Baekhyun even angrier.

Because it was selfish. To not allow a heart to move on, to not put it at ease, it was selfish. Jaehyun had wanted to keep this love even when he decided to leave this world, had wanted Chanyeol for himself, and by leaving without a trace he had done just that. He must have known that Chanyeol wouldn’t give up on him, that what they had had was too strong to break like that, and it made Baekhyun realise how Chanyeol would never love again without him getting his heart broken first.

A leg swung over Baekhyun’s hip, pulling him out of his thoughts, and Chanyeol pushed himself up, lips moving away from the skin of his collar bone. After some rustling of the sheets and feet knocking against his knee and thighs, Chanyeol sat himself down on top of Baekhyun, or well… Jaehyun, and leaned over him. His curls fell down around his head, making him look cute and much more innocent than his current touches were suggesting he was.

Fingers had found their way underneath Baekhyun’s shirt and they were tickling his sides and moving up to his chest, but although Baekhyun wanted to stop this, he couldn’t talk or move. He was still frozen, still stuck in this memory that wasn’t his, and it was starting to become painful. The realisation of what Jaehyun had done combined with the feeling of Chanyeol’s love dripping from his lips, his fingertips, and into who he thought was his lover… Baekhyun couldn’t breathe.

He wanted to push him off, wanted to tell him to forget this man, to move on and find someone deserving of his kisses. Someone who would treat him like he was everything, the way an angel would love. Baekhyun didn’t want this, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Not until Chanyeol was grinding his hips down against him, hands putting pressure on his heart as he leaned on Baekhyun’s chest.

Baekhyun groaned, the sound low, and his hips twitched as he tried to stay still. He wasn’t sure if that was Jaehyun or if it was actually him making that sound, but he could feel how his body was starting to respond to all the touching, his mind growing more mushy and unfocused by the second. Baekhyun couldn’t help it, it had been too long, way too damn long.

Chanyeol tipped his head to the side, smiling down at him sweetly, and he repeated the move as if he hadn’t done anything special at all. As if he didn’t know the way it made fire spread all throughout Baekhyun’s lower body. That was why it was called a sin, because this kind of love burned like the fire in hell, and that was what Baekhyun loved about it most.

He felt tingles all over, going up his stomach to his chest and down from his hips to his toes, and if this had been anyone else, if Baekhyun had been his old self, he would have welcomed this easily. Baekhyun would have given as much as he was getting, but he wasn’t like that anymore. Things were different now.

He wanted to. He would have flipped them over and made this a little less innocent still. He would have put his hips to use, not wanting to stop before the other felt like they were dying. Baekhyun really fucking wanted to, but not like this. Not with someone who wasn’t his, someone who thought he was Jaehyun. He simply couldn’t.

The clear desire for this to stop, for him to take control of his own body before this would go somewhere he didn’t want, it was what finally got him to pull through. He felt it the moment he took over, because it felt like being launched out of a chair inside his head right into the real world.

Everything was more intense. Chanyeol’s mouth, which was now shaped perfectly for him to leave out a delicious moan, was loud. The feeling of fingers stroking across his skin was that much more electrifying, and Baekhyun groaned as he realised how hard he was. But no, not like this. He couldn’t like this.

Baekhyun squeezed his eyes shut and let his hands snatch Chanyeol’s wrists, a move that made the boy lose his balance and so he toppled over against him. Chanyeol yelped, surprised by the move, but Baekhyun caught him easily. He moved Chanyeol’s arms away from his body so he wouldn’t get elbowed anywhere, and then he wrapped his arms around him and held on tight.

Chanyeol’s cheek was pressed to his chest, the shock of Baekhyun’s move still leaving him unmoving, but still, by holding on to him like that Baekhyun was sure the boy couldn’t move against him anymore even if he wanted to.

There was silence for a minute in which neither of them moved, neither of them did much of anything, but Baekhyun lay with his eyes closed as he felt Chanyeol breathing against his chest. The air was warm, Chanyeol was warm, and Baekhyun’s body wanted him to cave and give in to this feeling he had been missing for so long.

But then Chanyeol moved, hands in the mattress as he tried to push himself up again. Baekhyun tightened his grip, making Chanyeol’s attempt unsuccessful, and the boy only managed to turn his head to look up at Baekhyun. When their eyes met Baekhyun felt desperate, and so he whispered, begged, “don’t. I’m not yours.”

He could see the confusion in Chanyeol’s eyes at those words, the way the playfulness just slipped away, leaving nothing but fear in that soft brown as the boy started to ponder what those words meant. Luckily for Baekhyun, though, that was when he woke up.

He had spilled the last of his tea on his thighs, soaking his pyjamas. He cursed and put down his mug, awkward hands rushing to dab his pyjamas dry with the nearest fabric, which turned out to be the curtain, but it was pretty futile. Now both his curtain and his legs were wet.

Outside a car was honking annoyingly at someone who had crossed the street without looking, and Baekhyun just sat there with wide eyes as he slowly landed again. What he hadn’t realised before was how there was a cold sweat on his back, how he was half-hard from that stupid dream and now his pants and shirt were sticking to his skin uncomfortably. Fuck.

He put the mug down in front of him and drew the curtains aside, all but falling into his room as he stumbled to get to the bathroom. With trembling fingers, again, he started peeling off his pyjamas, feeling the cold air hit his wet legs, and so he quickly stepped underneath the showerhead.

Knowing he didn’t have the money to take long showers, and this one was necessary but unplanned, Baekhyun kept it short. He didn’t wash his hair, only let the water wash away the sweat on his body, the cold stickiness of his tea, and he sighed as he braced himself against the wall with one arm.

He curled the fingers of his free hand around his dick as the warm water washed over him, and although at first Baekhyun had been shy about doing this to his new host body, he was now comfortable enough to not even think about it.

He knew what he liked, knew how to get himself to reach his climax as quickly as he could, and his hips started bucking into the hold a little desperately. His body was on edge, had been on edge for a while now, and the dream had been too much. It had been the last straw, and now Baekhyun was unravelling.

The water was prickling his skin, numbing it slightly with how hot it was, and he really fucking didn’t need this, but here he was anyway. Standing in his tiny shower, alone and going fucking crazy thinking about a boy that wasn’t his. A boy that, for some stupid reason, wouldn’t leave his damn mind, and Baekhyun let tiny whining cries slip from his lips as he worked himself to his release.

He remembered so clearly those fingers on his skin, the press of warm lips to his collarbone, the sound of his moan as he rocked himself against Baekhyun’s hips. It wasn’t fucking fair, it really wasn’t goddamn fair to play with him like this, and Baekhyun was so tired of resisting that he just stopped.

His body got weak the second he came against the bathroom wall, Chanyeol’s face still the only thing on his mind, and he gasped for air while heaving sobs. With his knees no longer supporting him and his body so tired, mind spent, Baekhyun fell against the arm he had braced against the wall.

Somehow he still managed to turn off the tap before he let himself slide down against the cold tiles. He was too exhausted to care. He was crying, stupid ugly tears, that dropped down to the drain the same way water was dripping from his hair. The downside of human emotions was how they weren’t as easy to push aside. The downside of living between good and evil was how he could never commit to one or the other, which made life that much more difficult.

If he could be good he could forget about Chanyeol without any difficulty. He could move on and forget it ever happened, knowing it was best for the boy, but Baekhyun wasn’t that selfless. And if he could be bad he could take advantage of this situation without feeling guilty. He could find Chanyeol, pretend to be Jaehyun for his own sake, just so he could feel that love, and he could use him and leave him without any regrets. But Baekhyun was stuck in between, a place where there seemed to be no solution for how he felt, and that sucked.

This wasn’t fair. He didn’t want to feel like this about Chanyeol. They weren’t his feelings, they were Jaehyun’s, and Baekhyun didn’t want them. Yet he couldn’t stop it, because this was Jaehyun’s body, and whatever he felt for Chanyeol, Baekhyun got to feel it too.

There was only one solution that Baekhyun could think of, one that would make it better for both of them, but it wasn’t one he planned to act on. For Chanyeol to move on, to forget about Jaehyun, Baekhyun had to tell him the truth. And for him to move on, for him to let go of these feelings inside his chest, he had to get to know Chanyeol himself. He had to shape his own opinion of the guy to replace the old feelings.

But those two things, they were tied together. One couldn’t do without the other, especially because Baekhyun wasn’t planning on pretending to be Jaehyun, and so he couldn’t. He’d rather feel this way forever then. He’d rather cry a thousand times than tell Chanyeol the truth. And he knew that was selfish, because that meant Chanyeol might never move on, but he didn’t care. He just couldn’t do it.

End of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos & comments = love <3


	4. Shaking pillars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baekhyun thinks everything will be fine if he just ignores Chanyeol's existence, but that doesn't seem as easy as he thinks... Will he keep standing, or does he bend and break?

 

Leaving his apartment the next day wasn’t as easy as he had hoped it would be. He had hoped the fresh air would do him good, that the distractions from work could keep him occupied, but Baekhyun was tired. He had slept some, but definitely not enough to be more well-rested than he had been when he had left the bar the night before, and he already knew Minseok was going to whine about it. He hadn’t done anything to stop himself from feeling so on edge, in fact it had gotten worse, and he knew it wasn’t acceptable.

And it wasn’t as if he didn’t have a valid reason, he really did, but it was just that he couldn’t give anyone that reason. He couldn’t explain his real struggles, and so he’d have to settle on a stupid mortal argument that Minseok would most likely see right through. He was fucked, but whatever.

When he got closer to the bar, closer to where he had been recognised the night before, Baekhyun pulled up his hood, worried maybe Chanyeol could be hanging around that same spot and would see him again. Baekhyun really hoped he wasn’t, but he had to consider it a possibility. Especially because he knew how much Chanyeol cared about Jaehyun. It was very likely he wasn’t going to give up.

Part of him was actually hoping to see that the boy wasn't giving up on finding him, not that easily. Part of him wanted Chanyeol to keep looking and to find him, to find Baekhyun, but that was the part of Baekhyun that felt lonely. It was the part of him that wanted someone to care for him the way that Chanyeol cared for Jaehyun. It wasn’t a rational thought.

The more rational part of him wanted Chanyeol gone, because the more he thought about it, the more he realised that he couldn't give the boy what he wanted. He wasn't Jaehyun, he wasn't the person Chanyeol longed to be with, and it wouldn't be fair to him. No matter how much Baekhyun wanted to talk to him, it would be outweighed by the knowledge that one day that would break Chanyeol's heart. And Baekhyun felt strongly enough about this stranger that he didn't want that to happen.

He walked with his head bent and his hands stuffed in his pockets as he took his regular route to work, but as he came to the street that he had been stopped in the night before, he paused. Not because he wanted to stop and think about what had happened, nor was it because he liked the scenery so much. No, Baekhyun stopped because he could see a figure sitting there against the wall, right where he had been caught about 16 hours before. 

It was Chanyeol.

It was clear to Baekhyun, even from this far away, that it was Chanyeol who was sitting there, knees pulled up to his chest and arms wrapped around himself. It was cold, and Chanyeol looked cold too, but he sat there nonetheless. He sat frozen, eyes up to check every face that walked by, and if it wasn’t for how he moved his head as his eyes focused on a new face every few seconds, Baekhyun could have thought it was just a statue.

Chanyeol looked like he hadn't left that spot at all. He was still wearing the same coat, the same jeans as the night before, and he looked tired and worn out. His hair was a little messed up, and if Baekhyun didn't know any better he'd think maybe he was just a homeless man sitting on the streets begging for money. But Baekhyun knew better.

He knew that Chanyeol was anything but a homeless beggar, and Baekhyun hated how the sight of the guy made his heart skip a beat, his mind instantly back to the shower incident of the night before, to the dream he had had. To see him there, even in that state, Baekhyun lost it again. He was just glad to be standing far away enough that Chanyeol couldn’t see him, because he was positive his feet were frozen to the ground again.

It was so crazy to him, that love could be this strong, this powerful. It was important enough to Chanyeol to assure that he was looking for him. Did Chanyeol still have enough hope left to stay here and wait for Baekhyun to return? Was he that desperate?

Baekhyun shook his head at himself, because no, of course Chanyeol wasn't waiting for Baekhyun. He was waiting for Jaehyun. And Jaehyun would never return. 

"Fuck," Baekhyun sighed, hating how he had let himself slip for a moment, how he had let himself care. He shouldn't give a fuck about this Chanyeol, he should just walk past him and tell him to fuck off if the guy decided to bother him again, but he couldn't. Instead he turned back around and started walking back to where he had come from, deciding to take a detour today. 

He knew he'd be late for work now, but he didn't care. The risk of Chanyeol seeing him again was simply too high. He'd have to sit it out until the guy would get too tired of waiting around there any longer. He'd have to wait until that sliver of hope he had created had died down again, so until then he'd leave home a little earlier, walk through streets that were a little dodgier. Anything to avoid that beautiful, brown-haired boy. 

~

Except, as it became clear soon enough, Chanyeol wasn't going to give up. 

It had been a week since he had first seen the kid waiting for him in the streets, and it turned out he was still there. Baekhyun heard people at the bar talking about 'that crazy guy that wouldn't move' and 'waiting for his lost love like a confused puppy'. They were lauging at him, speculating about his mental well-being and cracking jokes, but Baekhyun tried not to reply to it. He tried to act indifferently, like he knew nothing about it, but Minseok was able to tell something was up. 

"Still haven't gotten laid, have you?" The guy asked on Thursday once Baekhyun came rushing in late, hair a mess due to the hat he had been wearing. It was snowing outside, which made his detour take even longer than usual, and it got him grumpy because now he was late _and_ his ass hurt from the few times it had met the pavement. Minseok had glanced at him once and made that comment straight away, no mercy.

Baekhyun groaned as he rubbed his behind, "please, please stop that. Just because you get some regularly doesn't mean all of us do. Not all of us have a Kyungsoo to take care of us." He took off his scarf as well and tried to fix his hair by messing it up even more. Luckily he could pull off the edgy look.

"Oh, come on, Baek," Minseok replied, "I'm just teasing you, you know that. I know not everyone is blessed with a Kyungsoo, but a one-night stand doesn't have to be that amazing, nor does he have to be that good looking," he pointed out. "I just want that frown on your face to disappear, it's making you look ugly and old." 

Baekhyun hadn't even noticed he was frowning until Minseok had pointed it out, and he brought up his fingers to rub the wrinkles out of it, "yah, mind your own business." He was being grumpy for no reason, and he knew it too, which was why he sighed and looked away as he apologised, "I'm sorry. I guess it's just... the holidays are almost here and I'm alone and... those are never the easiest times." 

It wasn't that much of a lie. It wasn't as if Baekhyun didn't know what it was like to be lonely, in fact he knew that feeling very well, but he hadn't ever celebrated Christmas. As an angel he had felt love in the air this time of the year, because the holidays brought people together, it brought light and happiness.

But, being a human now, he had to learn how to celebrate like a human, and last year he had been lying on the cold streets while everyone had gone home to spend time with their loved ones. So, really, Baekhyun wasn't lying.

"Ah, I get it," Minseok nodded at him as he watched his friend put on his apron, "you know the offer still stands, right? You can come celebrate with Kyungsoo and I." But Baekhyun shook his head at that, "no, really, Minseok. It's so kind of you, but it's too kind. Christmas is for your loved ones, your family, not for charity cases like me. I'll be fine." 

Minseok was about to protest, the way he always did when Baekhyun put himself down like that, but Baekhyun was already pushing past him and into the bar. He took his apron from the hook and put it on while his boss followed him, even though he couldn’t continue their conversation in the presence of customers. Baekhyun had won. For now at least.

He finished tying a knot and kept his head bent as he walked to the register to check in. He wasn’t exactly in the mood to start his shift, even though he had slept more hours than he had done the few nights before, but he had no choice but to get it over with. He just had to close his eyes and think of the money, think of all it got him.

It wasn't until he reached the till, fingers tapping against the screen to log himself in, that he realised just how quiet it was around him. His head whipped up, worried he'd come to see an empty bar, but when he looked up he saw how that wasn't it. There were a dozen people there already, despite it being early, but all of them were being quiet. That wasn’t what was strangest though. No, the strangest thing was that they all had their eyes on Baekhyun. 

Baekhyun blinked, frozen as he looked back at the eyes that were staring at him, and just as he opened his mouth to say, "what you looking at?" everyone averted their eyes and started whispering in hushed tones, bodies close together as they hid from Baekhyun now.

It was an odd thing to experience as a human, the way everyone had been watching him but now turned away. It seemed as if everyone was against him for some reason, as if he had done something to make everyone hate him and gossip about him. That wasn’t something Baekhyun hadn’t experienced before, but he had been a demon back then. A well-known fallen angel that liked to fuck whoever was willing, and that meant he had damaged some relationships, but that had been common demon business.

For a human to get this treatment, well, Baekhyun knew a few examples, but none of those fit any of his recent behaviour. So why were they turning their backs on him like this? Even some loyal customers who he could always laugh with had turned away from him. What had he done to deserve that? What the hell was going on?

Minseok had followed him into the bar and was staring as well, confused by what was going on with the customers. He stopped next to Baekhyun and leaned in closer to him before he whispered, "what's happening?" As if Baekhyun had any clue at all.

He was thinking, trying to figure out why people could be talking about him, why he could be their target, and then his eyes found one hunched back with ugly hair on top. Oh. Baekhyun knew why, alright.

"That fucker," he groaned, stomping his way past the bar, over to where the group of customers had gathered together. They were still talking softly, heads bent together, and Baekhyun couldn't hear what they were saying, but he had an idea what it was about, and so he tapped Nam-gi on his shoulder. 

"Hey," he snapped, "what the hell is your problem?" Nam-gi Turned to face him and Baekhyun stared at him daringly as the man’s ugly grin came into view. God, if he had been able to he would have let his demon show right now, just to show how pissed off he was, but seen as he was mortal he had to do with a glare. 

"My problem?" Nam-gi replied, staring back looking just as pissed off, "my problem is you.”

Baekhyun was taken aback by that, by the honesty of the man in front of him, because usually his glared would shut everyone up quite easily. Not Nam-gi apparently. The guy had guts, and Baekhyun was even more surprised to find the guy had actually continued talking, “you're leading everyone on while really, you're already dating someone." He sounded almost jealous, but mostly Baekhyun recognised annoyance and disappointment.

Baekhyun himseld, in return, was confused. "What the hell are you on about? I'm not leading anyone on," he snapped, feeling incredibly frustrated that he even had to explain this, "I'm sorry, but I just don't fucking like you, I'm not dating anyone." 

Nam-gi briefly turned back around, hand slamming on the table, and when he lifted it again he was holding up the paper that had been between them on the table, the thing they had been whispering about. "Really?" He asked, "then who the hell is this?" Nam-gi’s voice was loud and booming, the paper almost pushed right into Baekhyun’s face, and Baekhyun had to take a moment to focus on what it said.

On the paper Nam-gi was holding was a picture. It was a picture of Baekhyun. Or rather, it was a picture of Jaehyun, who was now Baekhyun, but the paper read ‘Lee Jaehyun’ just like his host’s full name.

Beneath the picture was some information that he could barely read with the way the paper was moving, but he caught some words. ‘Missing’, ‘Park Chanyeol’, ‘call this number’, ‘reward’. It was like a wanted poster, one with his face on it, and he felt the floor beneath him disappear with every passing second the silence around them went on.

He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The world was shrinking, Baekhyun was losing it, feeling trapped, and Nam-gi beat him to it, “your name isn’t even Baekhyun, it’s Jaehyun. You’re a liar and a tease, _Lee Jaehyun._ ”

Baekhyun felt his blood boiling at that, and he snatched the paper from Nam-gi’s hand while he screamed, being unnecessarily loud, “my name is _not_ Jaehyun. It’s Baek-hyun,” he made sure to articulate his words just so these slow fuckers could understand them.

As he spoke he backed Nam-gi up against the table, and he could see the way the guy panicked slightly, looking like a deer caught in headlights. No one dared help him, not after the way Baekhyun had just raised his voice. “Where did you get this?” He asked then, voice dangerously low, and he felt shivers down his own spine at how he sounded. A tiny bit of hell was bursting through his veins, that much was clear.

Nam-gi stuttered, cheeks going red as he felt so cornered, but Baekhyun pushed a little further because the guy wasn’t fucking answering him. “I-he- there’s this guy out on the streets, two blocks from here. He’s handing these out to people passing by,” eventually an answer came, and Baekhyun had already known who was responsible for this, but now he was sure.

Chanyeol.

He stepped away from Nam-gi very slowly, feeling how the tiny bit of space made the guy loosen up slightly, taking a breath again. Baekhyun had been threatening enough for everyone to go silent, but he also knew that it hadn’t helped kill their suspicions. He had to do more, had to make sure they thought it was just a game, that it wasn’t true.

“I knew it. I thought I had managed to shake him off, but that fucker… thinks using a different name can keep him out of jail,” he mumbled, almost as if to himself, “he’ll pay for this. I thought the stalking had stopped once I moved here, but no… can’t escape this shit.” He shook his head and made sure to look upset, worried, when he looked up at the customers again.

They all looked at him curiously, and then Baekhyun threw in a soft, “thank you for making me aware of this,” while flashing his puppy eyes, and he just hoped that was enough for now. Because he was done wasting his time on them. He was done with this whole Jaehyun thing. Fuck it.

He turned around and rushed to the bar while undoing his apron, which he had literally put on only ten minutes ago. “Where are you going?” Minseok asked, his mouth still hanging open due to what had just happened. Baekhyun was surprised his boss actually managed to ask him that with the way he was just gaping at him. Clearly Minseok was a lot tougher than Baekhyun had thought.

“To end this,” he answered, sounding rather omnious as he pushed the door to the staff room open. He wasn’t lying though. He had to end this, he had to find Chanyeol and break his heart, that was the only solution. Baekhyun hated it, he didn’t want to do it, but he had to bring out the bad parts of  himself and do what had to be done in order for him to live peacefully.

“Yah! I will cut your paycheck for this!” Minseok yelled after him, following him into the room, “I know you need the money, but I will do it. Unless you explain to me what the hell is going on.”

When Baekhyun looked up he could see Minseok looking at him fiercely, hands balled into fists and his chin high in the air. He had that bossy attitude, but it was weaker now, and Baekhyun wondered if his outburst had anything to do with that. Had he scared his friend too? He couldn’t believe that. Minseok wasn’t afraid of anything.

“You know you can tell me anything, Baekhyun,” Minseok went on when he noticed how Baekhyun was still watching him, but it was the wrong thing to say. Baekhyun shook his head, “cut my hours, I don’t care. I need to take care of this. It’s just something I can’t-,” he paused, rephrased it, “I’m not ready to talk about.” There was no need to worry his friend too much. Even though Baekhyun knew he would never be ready to talk about it, Minseok didn’t. And he didn’t have to know about it either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> confrontation time is here!!


	5. Face the Music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baekhyun wasn’t sure he’d be able to do it, to actually break someone’s heart, but if he had to then he would. His life was precious to him, and he wanted for nothing to change now, which meant that he had to make some difficult choices, just like this one. Baekhyun didn’t even really know Chanyeol, but he still cared about him, and that was why this wasn’t easy.

~

 

Keeping his hands in his pockets and his face hidden in his scarf he walked with large strides, easily finding his way to where he knew Chanyeol could be found, waiting for him. Still, even with his goal clear, it wasn’t simple to go through with it, and with every step he took Baekhyun wanted to take two backwards.

He kept telling himself how he needed to do this in order not to turn back around, because he knew he couldn’t escape him. It had been a week since he had first seen Chanyeol, for fuck’s sake, and he was still there. The guy clearly wasn’t going to give up, which meant that if Baekhyun wanted any peace of mind he’d have to face his problems rather than try and run from them.

The last thing he wanted was to keep taking a detour to work, but more importantly he didn’t want to worry about what the others thought about him, and so this was the only solution.

Confrontation wasn’t one of Baekhyun’s strong points. Before he became a mortal he had always used his status to make people do what he wanted, that or his powers, and right now he could use neither. He hoped though, that he was strong enough to make his words sound powerful and true.

“Have you seen this man? Excuse- hello,” Baekhyun could already hear him, “have you seen this man?” Chanyeol was no longer sitting on the ground and staring at every passer-by, like he had been days before. Now he was standing, handing out flyers like the one Baekhyun had crumpled up back in the bar. He looked so confident, despite the fact that he looked tired and like he clearly hadn’t showered in days either. The idiot.

What was even sadder was that hardly anyone was paying attention to him. People were passing by, busy with their phones or just shaking their heads implying they couldn’t understand him or didn’t want to listen. It was almost sad to watch, the way Chanyeol’s shoulders slumped for a few seconds whenever he got turned down, before they went back up as he tried to approach someone new. He was too resilient, obviously not backing down for anything, and Baekhyun would have been flattered had he not been so angry.

But his anger was unjustified. He had no reason to really be angry with Chanyeol, it was just that his anger was linked to his fear, the fear of being found out, and as he stood still for a second and watched Chanyeol, he remembered what his dream had brought him days ago. He knew that there were only two solutions to this mess, and one of those – the only one that could work - was to break Chanyeol’s heart.

Baekhyun wasn’t sure he’d be able to do it, to actually break someone’s heart, but if he had to then he would. His life was precious to him, and he wanted for nothing to change now, which meant that he had to make some difficult choices, just like this one. Baekhyun didn’t even really know Chanyeol, but he still cared about him, and that was why this wasn’t easy.

No, nothing about cornering the boy against the wall, his flyers pressed to his chest as he stumbled backwards, was easy, but Baekhyun still did it. What was even harder was touching him, but Baekhyun pushed himself further and forced the hand that had been holding the flyers up against the concrete behind his back. He heard Chanyeol hiss as his knuckles grazed the wall, but he didn’t flinch.

Baekhyun tipped his head forward a little as he pressed on, making the hold uncomfortable, and when Chanyeol looked at him he spoke calmly, voice low and demanding, “let go.” Chanyeol didn’t even hesitate before his fingers let go of the papers, making them fall around them on the ground, like leaves falling off a tree. The wind blew them in every direction, making Baekhyun’s plan successful.

Chanyeol was watching him with wide eyes, and he stood unmoving as he stayed frozen against the wall. Really, he could have used his free hand, could have pushed against Baekhyun’s hold, but he just stood there, waiting. He was waiting for more, for Baekhyun to disappear maybe, as if he was expecting him to leave and make him think it had been nothing but a mirage. Chanyeol was watching him. And Baekhyun was suddenly at a loss for words.

He blinked as he looked back into those gorgeous brown eyes, saw the way they were staring into his so intently. He hated that. He also hated how Chanyeol’s lips were parted, his lower lip shining slightly in the light of the setting sun, because it reminded him of his dream. The one where Chanyeol had been on top of him, kissing him and- Baekhyun had to look away.

His cute ears, his fierce expression, everything about him left Baekhyun suddenly breathless, and his hold was starting to loosen. He was weak, too fucking weak, and his heart was betraying him in the worst way. It was awful, it made Baekhyun want to fall to the ground in frustration because he couldn’t have this, he couldn’t have both, but somehow he kept standing.

“Jaehyun…” Chanyeol breathed out then, sounding so relieved, so happy, and that pulled Baekhyun right out of it. Because Chanyeol wasn’t here for him, and he kept forgetting that. He kept forgetting that this gorgeous man wasn’t his, wasn’t looking for him, and this was why Baekhyun had to toughen up and pick himself over Chanyeol.

His hold tightened again, his fingers squeezing around Chanyeol’s wrist in a way he knew it would bruise. Chanyeol whimpered, turning his head as his hand finally restrained against the hold it was in, but Baekhyun was stronger. “What the hell are you doing?” Baekhyun asked, voice trembling slightly, but it was still dangerous enough to make Chanyeol shrink slightly.

“I- I’m looking for you. Of course I’m looking for you,” Chanyeol brought out, the words so fast they were almost tripping over each other, “did you actually think I was going to give up on you? _Jaehyun,_ you were my world. You’re still my world. All I’ve done is look for you, I was never going to-“ It was as if he had to get it out now, before Baekhyun would turn his back on him again, and no matter how stupid it was, Baekhyun understood that.

But this wasn’t about understanding, nor was it about Baekhyun’s pity for Chanyeol, and so Baekhyun interrupted him, screaming right in Chanyeol’s face, “well, then you’ve been wasting your time!” right when he let go of Chanyeol’s wrist.

He turned away, needing a moment to breathe, because the pain in his heart was multiplying at a rapid speed. It hurt, it hurt a ton to hear Chanyeol say those words, because Baekhyun had these feelings for Chanyeol, feelings that weren’t his but felt like his, and so this hurt as if it was him. Him loving Chanyeol while Chanyeol loved someone else.

“How often do I have to tell you that I’m not Jaehyun?” he asked then, toning down his anger in order to try and get through to Chanyeol, “I get it, I do. I look like him, a lot. People at the bar showed me the flyer and I see why you think I’m him, but I’m not. I’m not Jaehyun, I’m Baekhyun.”

Chanyeol was watching him, looking very disbelieving when Baekhyun actually thought he sounded very convincing. Really, he was doing so well, this should have been easy, but Baekhyun knew a stubborn love-sick puppy was anything but easy. He expected this attempt to be futile, like it had been before, except Chanyeol seemed to be giving up, unexpectedly.

“Okay,” Baekhyun heard as an answer to his explanation, and when he looked up he saw Chanyeol was smiling at him softly, “I’m sorry for how I attacked you in that case. I hope you forgive me,” he sounded a little too sincere, a little too fake, “please accept this hug.”

Chanyeol was already opening his arms for Baekhyun, and even though Baekyun wanted to protest and say it wasn’t necessary, because really he didn’t want to know what hugging Chanyeol felt like, it was too late. He was pulled to Chanyeol’s chest, two strong arms around him, and Baekhyun instantly forgot what he was going to say.

A tiny part of his brain was telling him to freak out, because of course Chanyeol would know what it felt like to hug Jaehyun, and he’d find out Baekhyun was lying then, but it was too late anyway. There was no point in freaking out over this then.

He did try to break free, partly because he didn’t want to give Chanyeol too much time to figure it out, but mostly because if they were strangers it would be weird to hug for so long. But as he tried to step back, Chanyeol turned them around and pushed Baekhyun against the wall instead.

Baekhyun lost his breath for a second, and if it hadn’t been for how Chanyeol was holding on to him he would have lost his footing as well. The boy held him in place with one hand and turned his head to the right with his other, looking at him only briefly before he decided, “liar. You’re a liar, Jaehyun.”

Baekhyun could feel a finger run past the shell of his ear, and his throat went dry when he realised right now he was the one being trapped, and there were no more ways to escape. Baekhyun’s heart was beating out of his chest, it had to be.

“That’s my favourite spot, the birthmark on your left ear. I’ve seen it countless times on all the days where I woke up before you. I know every detail of your face, I can paint you in my dreams. You can’t lie to me, so stop.”

Baekhyun felt like crying, he truly felt like crying. Like falling down, wrapping his arms around his legs and letting out the ugly tears that were hiding behind his eyes. Why? Why did he have to get a host body with a lover? Why? Chanyeol cared so much, Baekhyun could tell, and it hurt. He didn’t want it to hurt.

There was no way out, no way for Baekhyun to argue now. He didn’t even know about the spot Chanyeol was referring to, but he knew it was proof enough to make anything he’d say meaningless. Baekhyun couldn’t fight his way out of this anymore. Either he’d flee or he’d fight, but fleeing meant that he’d have to leave this part of Seoul, if not all of Seoul, behind, and he wasn’t willing to do that, which meant the only option was to fight.

“Fine,” Baekhyun said, “alright. Great. You found me. Chanyeol, I’ve been trying to let you down nicely, don’t you realise?” He smiled, if only briefly, trying to figure out what Jaehyun would have been like in this situation. He had no clue, his host might just act very differently from the way Baekhyun was acting now, but he had the excuse of having been gone for over a year. People change over time. Right?

Chanyeol wasn’t taking it though. He didn’t look like a kicked puppy yet, like Baekhyun had made his heart break, and that meant that Baekhyun hadn’t been harsh enough. So he tried again, staring at Chanyeol defiantly, “Chanyeol… I’m breaking up with you. I thought that much was clear when I left and didn’t contact you, but apparently it wasn’t enough to convince you.”

There was a flicker of something in Chanyeol’s eyes and his mouth became a thin line as he listened to Baekhyun talk, and that was how Baekhyun knew now that those words had done something to him. Still, he already knew Chanyeol as someone who wouldn’t give up easily, and so the shock was quickly covered by determination as the boy shook his head at that, “no.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Baekhyun replied, hating how Chanyeol dared to defy him, how the guy was shaking his head and dismissing his words as if they were nothing. “I mean no, you’re not going to break up with me,” Chanyeol clarified for him, “I mean that whatever it is, Jae, we can fix it. Whatever it is that’s making you do this, you’re mine, and I’m not letting you go.”

Stupid boy. Stupid fucking boy. Blinded by love, so pure and angelic too. God, Baekhyun wanted to scream it. Scream how selfish Jaehyun had been, how he had killed himself, how he had left Chanyeol behind to live with a lost love forever. He couldn’t, but god, did he want to.

“I-“ Baekhyun stuttered, “I have someone else,” he said then, quickly making something up, but even to his own ears it was less than convincing. Chanyeol didn’t seem fazed either, “I’ll win you back,” he replied. Baekhyun shook his head and went on, tried to fix it, “no. No, Chanyeol, you don’t get it. I’m _done with you_.” But yet again, Chanyeol didn’t seem that bothered. He only stared at Baekhyun for a while, and then he hummed out a quiet, “liar.”

It was supposed to make Baekhyun explode, because he had felt his frustration grow, but somehow he didn’t reach that boiling point. Instead he fucking blushed, like the whole cheeks-reddening thing, and all because Baekhyun hadn’t often been called a liar. It wasn’t that easy for people to see through his lies, but Chanyeol wouldn’t believe him. No matter what he did, Baekhyun couldn’t win from him.

“You need to let it go,” he tried once more, “go back home, tell my parents I’m fine and that I just wanted to start fresh. I’m Baekhyun now, not Jaehyun, so please let me be. Please.” He looked into Chanyeol’s eyes, begging him silently as the first bits of himself started to seep into his story. It was the truth, a covered up truth, but still the truth. Maybe that could change his mind.

Chanyeol got quiet after that, as if the begging was something he hadn’t expected. Maybe it was a very unlikely thing for Jaehyun to do. Either way, Chanyeol was watching him as if he wanted to see the truth in Baekhyun’s eyes, and so Baekhyun met his gaze. He stared back even though it made his heart drop into his stomach, even though all he really wanted was to lean in and feel those soft lips pressed against his. He wanted to feel if the dream was anything like the real thing. No matter how it wasn’t meant for him.

“No,” Chanyeol concluded, both hands cupping Baekhyun’s cheeks as he stepped even closer to him, watching him so attentively as his thumbs moved across Baekhyun’s cheekbones. “You’re holding something back. You don’t want me gone, not really. I know you, Jaehyun,” Chanyeol’s breath washed over his face, making Baekhyun feel all frozen again, and all he did was blink as he listened.

“I know your eyes, and I can tell you want me. I’ve been with you for years, you can’t hide from me. You lied to me,” Chanyeol almost sounded a little insulted by how much Baekhyun had underestimated him, and Baekhyun hated how he thought that was hot. Fuck, he was so fucked. “You’re not seeing anyone, are you? You’re trying to push me away for a reason I don’t know, but instead of telling me the truth, you’re telling me lies. Why?”

Baekhyun finally found the will to fight, and he pushed against Chanyeol’s hold. There was a single second where Chanyeol almost let go, surprised by the sudden resistance, but then he tightened his grip, and Baekhyun could feel how Chanyeol pressed his crotch to Baekhyun’s hips to hold him back more, which made Baekhyun lose his train of thought instantly.

“I told you the truth already,” he rambled, “it was the first thing I told you, but you wouldn’t believe me.” He was begging now, “please, whether I want you or not, I can’t have you any longer, Chanyeol. It’s not safe, you have to believe me. It’s something that can never be fixed. I swear, I’m not lying. Please, Chanyeol, please believe me.”

Finally something in Chanyeol seemed to change. The confession Baekhyun made, where he said it had nothing to do with not wanting him, that seemed to change his thoughts. Chanyeol’s hold grew weaker, and there was doubt in his eyes now. “Something that can never be fixed?” he asked, sounding so unsure, doubting whether he should believe it or not, “but- can’t everything be fixed? I’m sure you’re wrong. We’ll find a way.”

Chanyeol’s ever-lasting hope, his positive outlook on life, it was endearing, but it was a pain in the ass to Baekhyun right now. He had to take this further, had to make sure the boy understood. “Look, if people even see us talking right now… I can die. You can die. They could kill both of us. I did it for you, I left to protect you. Because you were my world too. I loved you too much, but I can’t love you any longer, not in this life.”

He was saying Jaehyun’s goodbyes for him, and they hurt Chanyeol, Baekhyun could see it. He was close to believing Baekhyun now, but he could tell how Chanyeol wouldn’t understand even if he came to believe him. Because Chanyeol was bright, he was radiant, and he was in love. He’d want to fight, wouldn’t give up even in that difficult situation.

“I’m Baekhyun now. No one can know I’m Jaehyun, do you hear me? Don’t look for me again,” he told Chanyeol, “if you do, I might have to kill you myself.” The words were a blatant lie, and Baekhyun knew that, but he hoped he was able to hold it together enough to make Chanyeol believe this too. Please, just a little more.

But instead of being afraid and backing off, the moment of doubt that had lingered on Chanyeol’s face disappeared in the blink of an eye. Something about what Baekhyun had said had been the wrong thing to mention, and now they were right back where they had started. Because Chanyeol snorted.

It was such an unexpected sound that Baekhyun almost flinched because of it. He had to admit that Chanyeol was a tough one, a really tough one. Usually that tone got him anything he wanted, but this soft, tall boy with such child-like curls was laughing, not impressed with his threatening at all. How did he do that? How was he able to repel Baekhyun’s threats?

“Oh come on now, do you really think I’ll believe that? You killing me? You killing anyone?” Chanyeol shook his head as he became a bit more serious again, “no, Jaehyun. It’s clear you’re hiding something, but no matter how hard you try to look for arguments to push me away, I won’t budge.”

The taller looked amused. He was making fun of Baekhyun, which turned the shorter’s surprise into anger. “Yah! What do you think you’re laughing at,” Baekhyun hit Chanyeol’s upper arm, frowning at him, “I’m fucking serious!”

He tried to get away from Chanyeol’s grip, but the boy wasn’t going to let him slip away. Baekhyun was tugged back against him and when he looked up to send Chanyeol another glare, he found the boy was staring at him intently. His eyes were searching Baekhyun’s face, searching for the lie.

“Alright,” Chanyeol concluded, “say I believe you. Hypothetically speaking. It still won’t change how I’d rather keep following you around just to be with you, even if that means every time we talk you’ll yell at me. It won’t change how I’d rather die than actually leave you alone.” Chanyeol was being serious, dead serious, Baekhyun could tell from the tone of his voice, and that was bad.

Because Baekhyun had run out of suggestions. He had said everything he could possibly say to change Chanyeol’s thoughts, and although from time to time the guy had seemed to be giving in, it all came back to nothing. All because of feelings. Stupid, goddamn feelings. Baekhyun was tired of them already.

Chanyeol truly was the only person Baekhyun knew that wore his heart on his sleeve like this. He felt no shame in admitting how he felt. At any other time Baekhyun would have appreciated that, he would have praised it, but not now. Not now that he had to end this.

He stared at the boy that had been Jaehyun’s boyfriend, the boy that wouldn’t believe he wasn’t the one he had fallen in love with, and he sighed, feeling his heart hammering loudly in his chest as he thought about the words he was about to say. They hurt him, and he felt bad for hoping they would hurt Chanyeol too. He hoped they would numb the guy enough for Baekhyun to flee the scene, if he was able to even to get out the words, but he numbed himself enough as well, tried to take a step back from his own consciousness as he spoke up.

“Then die,” he said, managing to sound very unaffected, “if you died tonight, nothing would be different for me tomorrow. I’ve been without you for more than a year, I no longer care,” the way he pushed back the pain he felt was honestly astonishing, Baekhyun didn’t know how he managed it, but he did. And so he kept going, turning their relationship into a train-wreck.

“I take it back, every time I told you I loved you, I take it all back,” he spat out, “you’re a kid, Chanyeol, it’s time to grow up… but you can’t, right? You just fail at everything. You were a boring lover, a stupid idiot to come look for me and you can’t even accept my kind attempts at blowing you off, so now I have to be this blunt. Get it through your thick skull already: you’re nothing to me. And honestly, anyone who’s ever said they loved you was either lying, or plain wrong.”

Somewhere, halfway through Baekhyun’s words, Chanyeol had dropped his arm to his side. The light in his perfect eyes, that fire Baekhyun so loved to see, slowly died after every punch he provided. And just like that, the pain was back. Baekhyun had finished talking and found himself with an unbearable pain in his chest, so awful it almost made him double over, but there was one thought stronger than the pain.

Run.

Chanyeol didn’t fight him when he stepped away, he didn’t move whatsoever, and Baekhyun felt so relieved that he was finally able to escape. That relief was greatly overpowered by the heartache, but Baekhyun could deal with that. He knew that feeling by now, knew he could let it in once he was alone, but for now he’d have to stay strong.

Baekhyun walked away like that, with his heart still racing in his throat, expecting Chanyeol to follow him, but he was safe. Chanyeol stayed left behind, standing there as he watched Baekhyun go, his flyers all around him, his shoulders dropped. He looked sad, the way Baekhyun felt sad, but in the end it was for the best. They could never make this work. Never. They just had to accept that.

With every step he took, Baekhyun’s heart felt heavier, like it seemed to do every time he saw Chanyeol and had to leave. It was getting more difficult to do this every time, and so Baekhyun really hoped he didn’t have to deal with this again. If he did, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to go through with it.

Maybe breaking up with someone, hurting them without a second thought, was something that wasn’t as painful if you no longer had feelings for that person, but that wasn’t the reality for them. Baekhyun hadn’t actually realised how much he had wanted to kiss Chanyeol until they had been so close. He almost wished they had, just a kiss goodbye, but it was best that they parted like this, without the added pain of a kiss.

Baekhyun walked back to work, glad he’d have some distraction from his thoughts rather than him having to be alone right now. He had felt like going home at first, leaving Minseok at the bar on his own, but he realised how being alone would end up in him crying again, most likely, and Baekhyun wasn’t ready for that. He wanted to postpone the break down for as long as he could, which was why when he walked into the bar and took off his coat he was ready to get back to work straight away. He wanted to get some people drunk, wanted to show off some skin and set a new record for getting the highest amount of tips in one night, but Minseok stopped him from doing any of that once he appeared behind the bar.

His boss put a hand on his shoulder when he tried to walk in further once more, acting as if he hadn’t been stopped that first time, and Baekhyun paused in surprise when he saw his friend’s face. He had expected to find anger there, with the way his shoulder was being squeezed painfully, but there wasn’t any of that in Minseok’s eyes. He looked almost sympathetic, as if he understood the way Baekhyun was feeling, and that was insane because he couldn’t possibly understand.

“Kyungsoo is waiting for you,” Minseok told him as he turned Baekhyun around to the face the back of the bar, where indeed, Minseok’s boyfriend was sitting at a table all by himself, his eyes on Baekhyun. Which was… peculiar, to say the least.

“Uhm, no thanks. I think sharing a boyfriend because I’m tense isn’t the way to go about this, Minseok,” Baekhyun chuckled, raising his eyebrows at him as he tried to laugh it off, but Minseok only rolled his eyes in an attempt to tell Baekhyun he was being a dick, which Baekhyun appreciated. Minseok saw right through his bullshit.

“Just go,” his friend sighed, “go and let him help you, okay?” which was even weirder, because Kyungsoo? Helping him? With this? Baekhyun burst out laughing, “oh god, Minseok, are you sure you’re not talking about sharing him?” he joked once again, feeling a small burst of brightness shining through the painful warzone that was his chest as he did, and in this moment he was forever thankful for having found Minseok.

Baekhyun should have kept quiet, he should have known that the comment would get him slapped in the face, but he just had to. He felt relieved now he was back, now that Chanyeol was gone, and even though he was a little unnerved still, he felt better. So he let Minseok slap him before he ran off to Kyungsoo’s table holding a hand to his hurt cheek.

When he flopped down, Kyungsoo’s eyes were already watching him intently, and it scared him a little bit. Baekhyun had seen Minseok’s boyfriend a few times already, when he had gone over to their apartment or at the bar, but he had never seen him like this. They had never been together just the two of them, that first of all, but secondly, Kyungsoo looked so serious, so peaceful and composed, and Baekhyun felt awkward underneath his gaze. This wasn’t the Kyungsoo he knew.

The Kyungsoo he knew would never lean over the table, his eyes sparkling brightly as they were filled with curiosity, and say to Baekhyun, “Byun Baekhyun, it’s time you tell me what happened after you fell.”

Because Kyungsoo wasn’t supposed to know his full name. Kyungsoo wasn’t supposed to know anything about him other than that he was Baekhyun, a friend of Minseok that had moved to Seoul and was working at his boyfriend’s bar. The fact that he knew that Baekhyun was Byun Baekhyun, how he confronted Baekhyun about his fall, could only mean one thing.

He could tell Kyungsoo knew he was piecing everything together by the grin that slowly formed on his face. A smile that said ‘that’s right, I know about you’, a smile that confirmed to Baekhyun that he had found a fellow angel, or maybe a fallen one, he wasn’t sure yet. Either way, he was sure about one thing…

Kyungsoo was just like him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooooooooo, be prepared for details about satansoo next week xoxo  
> Comments & kudos = love ><


	6. Prince of Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baekhyun gets a lecture from D.O Kyungsoo only to find out that maybe, it is all too late now.

 

“Wh- what?” Baekhyun asked, already knowing it was no use acting as if he didn’t know what Kyungsoo was talking about, but he had a hard time coming to terms with how the guy in front of him knew his name. More so, he had a hard time coming to terms with how Kyungsoo was just like him, how Minseok’s boyfriend had known all this time and hadn’t shared. It would have made Baekhyun’s life so much easier if they had had this talk months before.

“You know what I’m talking about, Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo told him, a simple request to cut the crap, “your fall. 28 years ago, year of the horse, along that star meteor.” He threw it out as if it was nothing, as if Baekhyun’s mouth wouldn’t drop in shock at how much he knew. Baekhyun remembered it as if it was only yesterday, and Kyungsoo was right about every detail.

The night of his fall it had rained stars, so many that they had been all Baekhyun had seen as he had realised what had been happening to him. Being cast out like that, for something Baekhyun knew wasn’t fair, it had been the most painful moment of his life. Even the stars hadn’t been enough to calm the pain in his heart during that moment.

To have his biggest dream taken away like that, the opportunity to love no longer within reach, Baekhyun had felt so broken. The same way he had felt broken after seeing Chanyeol, he had fallen down so far that even hell didn’t feel deep enough. But that had been twenty-eight years ago, and Baekhyun had built up a life since then.

“What about it?” He asked Kyungsoo, turning a little defiant, which for a second seemed to surprise the other before his gaze turned darker. “What is it to you? I don’t even know who I’m talking to,” Baekhyun went on before Kyungsoo got to open his mouth and interrupt, “for all I know you could be a spy.”

It was slowly starting to dawn on him how weird it was for Kyungsoo to be sitting here, confronting him. Was this an angel that had come to check on him? Or a demon maybe? Had he broken rules that had brought him in the spotlight? He couldn’t remember anything like it, so maybe he was only exaggerating, but the truth remained that Baekhyun didn’t understand why this was happening now.

Kyungsoo looked rather insulted by everything Baekhyun had said, and when he finally shut up, Minseok’s boyfriend leaned closer on the table, staring at Baekhyun intently, and with the blink of an eye he revealed himself. Bright yellow eyes with a circle of white inside, the same circle of white Baekhyun had, but then the outer circle was black, like a regular demon. Unlike Kyungsoo.

“You’re talking to D.O, D.O Kyungsoo,” Kyungsoo spoke calmly, but his voice was dark and heavy, and Baekhyun didn’t dare speak up again. Because he knew that name: D.O. He was a prince of hell, the only prince of hell that was a fallen one. He had been Lucifer’s right hand for nearly a century, until he had suddenly disappeared. No one had ever heard from him again, but the stories about Lucifer and D.O were legends in hell and a warning in heaven. 

It couldn’t be. He couldn’t possibly be sitting in front of one of the most well-known demons in the world. Minseok, he wouldn’t be dating someone that was capable of such darkness, unless Kyungsoo had changed. Unless he no longer was anything like in the stories. Or maybe the stories were simply exaggerated. It had to be something, because Baekhyun knew Minseok, and he knew his soul was pure.

As Kyungsoo blinked himself back again, Baekhyun turned his head to the bar, where Minseok was helping a customer. He was smiling, making the man laugh as he handed over his cash, and Baekhyun honestly couldn’t imagine it. Minseok dating a prince of hell.

“Does he know?” Baekhyun asked, seeing it from the corner of his eyes as Kyungsoo, or D.O, turned his head to look at his boyfriend too. He sighed, sounding tired, and then looked back at the table, and Baekhyun turned too. “Not everything,” Kyungsoo admitted, “he doesn’t know about my… reputation, but he knows I’m a fallen one. He knows what I used to be.”

Baekhyun hummed at that, not entirely surprised by his words, but still. Minseok didn’t know everything, and he wondered if they’d be together if he did. However, Baekhyun knew like any other what it was like to want to get away from actions of the past, and Kyungsoo had been dating Minseok for nearly two years, which meant it was serious enough.

“But, D.O,” Baekhyun started, trying to make sense of the disentangled thoughts in his head, but Kyungsoo held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t call me that,” he said, a frown gracing his face now, “I’m no longer D.O. I’m Kyungsoo now, so call me Kyungsoo.”

Baekhyun paused, lips still parted, and he blinked before nodding, “okay. Kyungsoo, then. How do you even know about me? I know you fell before I was even born. You had disappeared from hell years before I fell. You shouldn’t know about me,” he summed up, “so how do you know?”

Kyungsoo shrugged, leaning back in his seat a little more comfortably now that the conversation had moved away from Kyungsoo’s life to Baekhyun again. “Easy,” he explained, “when you showed up and introduced yourself as Baekhyun I thought I recognised that name. I still have connections, and I know about most of the fallen angels over the years. Your fall was quite a discussion, so your name stuck.”

“Hey,” Kyungsoo stopped his story when Minseok interrupted, sitting himself down next to his boyfriend, and he leaned in for a kiss which Kyungsoo happily provided, “hey.” Baekhyun looked away, not comfortable with the display of affection after the whole confrontation with Chanyeol he had just had, but it didn’t turn him bitter. He knew Minseok and Kyungsoo loved each other, even though they were quite an odd pair.

Baekhyun didn’t know what to do or say now that Minseok had joined them, because he didn’t know how much he knew, and so Baekhyun just looked at Kyungsoo hoping the guy would save him. Kyungsoo chuckled at that, rolling his eyes before he looked at his boyfriend, “seriously, how can you be friends with this guy? He’s such a pain in the ass. He’s acting like us knowing is the worst thing that could be happening to him.”

Minseok raised an eyebrow and looked at Baekhyun, that playful side to him that Kyungsoo loved so so much clearly having taken over from his bossy attitude earlier, “really now? Well, that’s funny, seen as for the past year nothing has even happened to him at all.”

Baekhyun opened his mouth at that again, reeling from one surprise into the other, but Minseok wasn’t done yet. “I hired his pathetic ass and give him money to survive and still he thinks we’re the bad guys?” he shook his head as he put a hand on Kyungsoo’s thigh, leaning into his boyfriend a little more, “come on, Baekhyun, I’m offended.”

Baekhyun stuttered, looking between Kyungsoo and Minseok until he got some words to spill out, “you knew?! You knew from the start?” he asked, and Minseok nodded, “obviously? Why would I have hired you otherwise?”

His best friend looked at his boyfriend with a small smile, “you reminded me of my dear Kyungsoo when I first met him, and it turns out I have a pretty good fallen-angels-radar. Kyungsoo did some research and we quickly figured out who you were and what happened.” He talked as if it was nothing. Why did everyone act as if it was nothing?

Baekhyun groaned and dropped his head on his arms on the table, closing his eyes as he tried to get it all straight in his head. So Minseok had known ever since their first meeting almost a year ago, and so had Kyungsoo. They knew about why Baekhyun fell, they knew he was living like a mortal now, but he was sure they didn’t know any of the details. Kyungsoo had asked him what had happened after he fell, which meant that he must not know much more than the angel Baekhyun.

“Fine, alright, I get it. You know,” Baekhyun threw up his hands then, making Minseok flinch while Kyungsoo didn’t even blink, “you know about me. Now why are you only telling me this now?” he demanded to know, and Minseok again gave him that incredulous look where he had both his eyebrows raised.

“Seriously now?” He brought out, raising his voice a little, “goddamn, how can you be such an idiot? Why are we telling you now? Clearly because you need our help,” Minseok leaned over to slap Baekhyun’s head again, but Baekhyun moved away in time and brought out a, “hey, stop hitting me!”

“Well then stop being an idiot!” Minseok spat out as a counter-argument, and Baekhyun couldn’t really fight that. He slumped down in his seat, grumbling as he told them, “I don’t need your help. I can handle myself just fine, thank you.”

This time it was Kyungsoo who was looking at him like he was an idiot, and Baekhyun hated that. He wanted to get up and walk away, simply because these two assholes thought they knew him better than he knew himself. He wasn’t an idiot, he was just… human. He was human now, and that meant that feelings were more complicated. None of what had happened with Chanyeol made him an idiot.

“Sure thing,” Kyungsoo said, “you’ll just deal with how everything is falling apart around you on your own then. It’s not like we care about how you feel,” he sounded so goddamn sarcastic that Baekhyun wanted to snap back at him, but before he could Kyungsoo added something that got Baekhyun to shut up, “it’s not like Minseok is worried about you leaving because everything is coming down. It’s not like he’s worried for your happiness, right?”

Baekhyun’s eyes trailed to Minseok, who was staring at him as if he was daring him to say anything about it, but then he got shy and averted his gaze to where his hand was playing with Kyungsoo’s pants. It was the easiest confirmation Baekhyun could be getting, and he suddenly realised how much his friends cared. It wasn’t something he was used to having anymore, especially not since he fell, but he was reminded of friendships where he had cared for others, where others had cared for him. He had underappreciated his friendship with Minseok, and Kyungsoo too.

“Oh,” Baekhyun said, going quiet, “I’m sorry.” He bent his head slightly to show how he meant it, and he decided maybe it was worth trusting them with this whole Chanyeol thing now that it was clear both of them knew anyway. “You’re right, too,” he finally admitted, both to himself and to them, “everything is falling apart.”

Both Kyungsoo and Minseok were quiet, waiting for him to go on, and Baekhyun felt awkward and unsure of where to start, so he just started rambling, probably messing everything up but he tried to stick to a certain timeline. Emphasis on ‘tried’.

“So,” he said, “a few months before I ended up in this bar, looking for a job, I was still in hell. I had a pretty good reputation, was well known, and that was exactly why some people didn’t like me. I managed to get a deal that way, one that allowed me to live a mortal life,” he explained, mostly looking at Kyungsoo, who was nodding along to his words.

“Anyway, I get this body, right. A guy from Anyang who commited suicide, or, almost commited suicide,” Baekhyun pointed out next, “and it turns out this Jaehyun, that used to be his name, was dating someone named Chanyeol. And now, everything is falling apart because Chanyeol is here and he saw me. Last week,” he was going back and forth between everything now, but he couldn’t stop, “he saw me and he has been looking for me ever since. That’s why the flyer… and well, I thought Seoul was going to be easy to disappear in, but I got lucky, didn’t I?”

Kyungsoo was staring, not that impressed, while Minseok was gaping at him, looking like this was the best gossip he had heard all year. His eyes were wide, his chin tipped up as if waiting for more to this exciting story, and so Baekhyun told them, “so when I saw that flyer I dropped everything and went to see him.”

“What did you say?” Minseok asked, taking his hand from Kyungsoo’s knee as he placed both hands underneath his chin, “what was he like? Is he cute?” and Baekhyun was caught off guard by that. This wasn’t some high school romance, not a regular crush, this was a serious situation that Minseok was pretending was easy when in fact, Baekhyun had established multiple times that it was anything but.

“It doesn’t matter,” he told his best friend, anger and disappointment leaking into his voice, “he loves Jaehyun. His heart would break if he found out what Jaehyun did, and no matter what feelings I have, it would never work. He’d always look at me and see him, not Baekhyun. So I told him to leave,” he concluded.

Minseok’s face fell, like the fairytale he had already been dreaming up was being killed right in front of his eyes, and Kyungsoo smiled at that and said, “typical,” which annoyed Baekhyun to no end. Who was Kyungsoo to judge him for his decisions? Why did he have to act like such a know-it-all?

“Excuse me?” Baekhyun asked, giving the guy a chance to change his behaviour, because whereas Baekhyun had really liked Kyungsoo before, he was starting to like him less and less. How could Minseok put up with someone so bratty?

“I said ‘typical’,” Kyungsoo repeated himself, “because it is. It’s so typical, the way you decide to push this guy away because he is linked to the old life of your host, while this is actually your chance to redeem yourself and do some right.”

Minseok had turned his head so he could look at his boyfriend, his eyes immediately brightening again at the possibility of his fairytale being brought back to life, “this is your chance to set things straight. You can tell him the truth and help him move on, and you can either fall for him or learn to let go. This whole cutting-him-off thing isn’t going to fix anything. It’s not going to make him leave, and all it does is cause both of you a lot of pain.”

Baekhyun huffed, realising now why he was so annoyed with Kyungsoo. It was because the fucker was right. He knew for a fact that Kyungsoo was right, because he’s had those thoughts before. He knows he can never let Chanyeol go without shaping his own view of the boy and he knew Chanyeol wouldn’t move on until he knew the truth. Yet he was holding himself back. Why? Why was the fear so strong?

“I won’t fall for him even if I let him in. It’s just that I don’t want to be related to Jaehyun, and he looks at me with these puppy eyes…” Baekhyun trailed off as he could see Chanyeol’s face in front of him, those exact puppy eyes begging him for something he couldn’t give him, “why should I tell him the truth? It only means one more human knows about us. Besides, imagine the same thing happened to Minseok, would you want to know he killed himself? After you gave your whole heart to him?”

He noticed how Minseok’s face fell at that, and he felt a little victorious as he had successfully made his boss think about what it was like to be in his shoes. Kyungsoo though, he was a lot less gullible, and he was talking from such an angelic stance that Baekhyun almost found it difficult to believe he was sitting across the former right hand of Lucifer.

“Yes,” Kyungsoo replied, “because although the truth hurts, it is the only way for people to find acceptance. Without it, they will never put their worries to rest.” The jerk crossed his arms a little smugly and added to that, “besides. You say it will break his heart to find out the truth, but the way you’re pushing him away now without a clear explanation, that is not breaking his heart? If both options will end with his heart broken, why not choose the one that’s most convenient for you? If you have any demon characteristics you’ll be selfish enough to take it.”

Baekhyun stared at him with his mouth open, while Minseok started clapping his hands, being very much aware of how Kyungsoo had outsmarted him. He raised his hands to take a hold of Kyungsoo’s face and placed a loud smacking kiss on his cheek, which left his boyfriend with a small but satisfied grin on his face. “That’s my boy,” Minseok said as he turned to Baekhyun again, smiling so brightly.

In turn, Baekhyun’s face turned sour, and he honestly wished for the floor to open up and swallow him whole, taking him back to hell, which was clearly where he belonged considering how he was plotting the deaths of his two friends now. Yet he didn’t have anything smart to say in reply, and that sucked.

He sat there in silence while Minseok and Kyungsoo kept looking more smug, teaming up against him, and Baekhyun threw his hands in the air by the time Minseok was bragging about, “can’t believe you managed to shut him up. You got him quiet, Soo.”

Baekhyun started pushing himself out of the booth, trying to get away from the annoying couple, but Minseok turned his bossy tone on him and stopped him, “hey! Where are you going? I’ve already cut enough of your hours today, don’t you think?”

Letting his eyes roll into the back of his head, Baekhyun brought up his hand to point his middlefinger up at them, all while walking away from their table. It wasn’t something he’d usually do, but by now Baekhyun couldn’t find it in himself to care. Minseok was foaming behind him, his voice raised as he screamed, “hey! I’ll fucking fire you for that, you goddamn idiot. Stop being such a big head!”

He let it be, could hear how Kyungsoo was instantly trying to calm his boyfriend down, speaking in a calm and soft voice, and Baekhyun heard it when he said, “let him go. Give him some time to make up his mind.” Of course the asshole said it a little louder on purpose, but Baekhyun huffed and let it slide off of him. Never ever would he make up his mind. He wouldn’t give Kyungsoo the satisfaction.

Baekhyun walked out the way he never did: through the front doors. The wind caught him off guard, instantly making him feel cold without a coat, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything anymore that day. All he wanted was to go home to his bed and sleep it all off. The confrontation with Chanyeol, the whole ordeal with his friends. Baekhyun was tired.

He wrapped his arms around and started walking, ignoring every look people shot at him. This was Seoul, a boy without a coat should not be the most entertaining thing to watch out in the streets, for fuck’s sake. He dropped his head, letting his hair cover some of his view, and kept on walking.

Kyungsoo was right. He was so incredibly right about this. Baekhyun was already hurting Chanyeol so much, bending over backwards to get himself out of the situation but using the most hurtful words in the process. It felt like kicking a puppy on repeat, like a continuous stab in the heart to Baekhyun, but he didn’t know what else to do. Wouldn’t it end up being a much bigger mess if he actually tried to tell Chanyeol the truth?

There was the possibility that Chanyeol wouldn’t even believe him, and then there was the possibility that he would and would actually run away this time. Maybe Baekhyun was selfish, just like Jaehyun had been. Maybe that was where Kyungsoo had been wrong, because if he were to be selfish he wouldn’t have to tell Chanyeol the truth. For him to be selfish, he had to keep this all the way it was, let Chanyeol trail after him time and time again.

But he realised now, that doing that brought him more pain than happiness. Every time he had to turn Chanyeol down it got a little harder, a little more painful, and it didn’t weigh up to having the boy around. So no, this whole situation clearly wasn’t working, Baekhyun knew that, but he was stubborn. And because he was stubborn, he did not want to take the advice his friend gave him, even though they were right.

He wanted to make this decision on his own, without any interference from Minseok and Kyungsoo. He wanted to feel like it was the right time, like he had completely accepted the possible outcomes of it all, before he surrendered himself. Moreover, he had to think of what to tell Chanyeol if he was going to tell him the truth, because he truly couldn’t just be blunt and throw it out.

He’d have to be considerate, would have to think what he could say to soften the blow, maybe something about how they didn’t know why Jaehyun killed himself but that, knowing how the boy felt, Baekhyun was sure it had nothing to do with Chanyeol. Or maybe Baekhyun should just show himself straight away so Chanyeol would actually believe whatever he’d say after that.

See, he had a lot of thinking to do before he could actually go through with it. He’d give himself another day or two before he’d be ready for another confrontation. Then he’d seek out Chanyeol and apologise, take him somewhere quiet to talk, and he’d make sure that by the end of it there were no questions left, whatever Chanyeol decided to do with him after.

Except, when Baekhyun finally realised how he was walking, taking his original route home, past the spot where he had run into Chanyeol, it was already too late. He was too close now to turn back, and it made his heart speed up awkwardly, the thought of seeing Chanyeol’s stupid face again making him so scared, stomach filled with butterflies, that he was scared he’d puke.

His eyes searched the area despite how his mind was telling him not to, and the smile that had slowly started growing on his face quickly slipped away again when he couldn’t find the curly haired boy anywhere. He turned in a circle, making sure he hadn’t missed anything and that Chanyeol hadn’t just moved across the street or something, but he was nowhere to be found.

Chanyeol was gone, no longer there on the sidewalk handing out flyers, no longer looking for Baekhyun – or Jaehyun - even though he had been there for days without moving once. He had just upped and left, leaving no traces of his presence behind. Not a single flyer was left, and Baekhyun felt a sudden sadness wash over him.

No matter what he would have decided, it was too late now. Chanyeol was gone, and so was Baekhyun’s shot at making things right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments & kudos = love <3


	7. Giving up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baekhyun didn’t know what made him turn around, walking back in the direction where he had come from, but he was. Instead of going back home, his body had betrayed him and he had turned around, his thoughts on nothing but Chanyeol. That stupid boy… He was truly gone.

 

 

Baekhyun didn’t know what made him turn around, walking back in the direction where he had come from, but he was. Instead of going back home, his body had betrayed him and he had turned around, his thoughts on nothing but Chanyeol. That stupid boy… He was truly gone.

Baekhyun had stood at the same spot where Chanyeol had spent almost a full week, thinking maybe he had only gone into a shop to use the bathroom or clean up some. Or maybe he had left to grab some food. Baekhyun had had hope that the guy would return sooner or later, but after two hours of nothing and Baekhyun freezing in the cold, he had decided to leave.

On his way to the bar again he tried to drown out his worries, tried to ignore the part of him that was telling him that Chanyeol had actually given up on him, just now that Baekhyun had finally decided to do something about the whole mess he had made. Yesterday he would have been glad. Yesterday he would have heaved a sigh of relief, but right now his heart was simply too torn to be happy.

Because his few, short meetings with Chanyeol had been the only things on his mind since he had first met the taller, and Baekhyun had thought that he hated those, when in fact they were the only thing going on in his life that were worth mentioning. So really, it had only been a game of tug of war between his desires and his mind, both fighting for what was essentially the same thing.

And now that thing, that person, had slipped through his fingers like sand, or so it seemed. Baekhyun only had one sliver of hope left, only one more chance to get in touch with Chanyeol now that their ‘running into each other’ had stopped. If only he wasn’t too late for that chance as well.

As he pushed into the bar again, his body eternally grateful for the warmth that suddenly surrounded it, he didn’t pause to let all the curious customers look his way and make fun of him. He knew he looked like a mad man, having left the bar a few hours ago in the most dramatic way, only to come back to it now with his tail tucked between his legs. Still, Baekhyun refused to look weak, like he was giving in by showing up here, and so he ignored everything and walked straight to the table with Nam-gi and his asshole friends.

He tapped the guy on the shoulder, making him turn around and stare at Baekhyun with his eyebrows raised. Nam-gi chuckled, glancing at his friends as if to say ‘look who showed up’ before he grinned at him with that dirty look that gave Baekhyun shivers. “What’s up, beautiful?” he asked, a hand already reaching out to touch Baekhyun’s waist, and Baekhyun slapped the hand away instantly.

“Don’t think I’m here to flatter your ego, Nam-gi,” he started, sounding as tired and uninterested by this as he felt, and he ignored the man’s face in favour of staring at the table, “I was only wondering if you still have that flyer. Please tell me you still have that flyer.” He sounded a little desperate, couldn’t stop himself enough to sound completely indifferent, and Nam-gi picked up on it easily.

“You barge in here asking for the thing you threw in my face before walking out,” he observed, “why are you looking for it? Made up your mind and want to contact your boyfriend, Jaehyun?” he asked, making a fool of Baekhyun, and just as stupid as the guy was, he added another comment that only angered Baekhyun more, “come on. What are you willing to pay to get it back? Care to get on your knees?”

It was clear Nam-gi wasn’t talking about him getting on his knees to beg, and Baekhyun smiled at him sweetly, feeling the hot tickles of hell burning his veins as he politely stepped closer, moving into Nam-gi’s space.

The move should have been threatening, but Nam-gi didn’t seem to take it that way, and so Baekhyun was forced to take it a step further, which he gladly did. He was done playing the asshole’s little games. This wasn’t a joke to him, because Chanyeol was on the line here, and Baekhyun was so over this guy harassing him.

His hand cupped the guy’s crotch through his pants, and for a moment the touch was innocent and Nam-gi’s eyes widened in shock, probably in a positive manner, but then Baekhyun balled his hand into a fist and twisted his arm. He literally had the guy by the balls, and Nam-gi bit back whatever offending thing had been on his lips this time.

“Let me ask you one more time, Nam-gi,” he repeated, trying to throw some aegyo in to sound as innocent as possible, “where is the flyer?” His mouth was close to Nam-gi’s ear, and to everyone else it probably looked as if Baekhyun was making a move on him, but Nam-gi knew better. He groaned, surrendering so easily. So weak, humans, couldn’t even withhold a bit of torture when it involved their dicks. So scared they’d never get to hand their idiocy down to the next generation.

“I threw it in the trash,” he admitted, and when Baekhyun looked for the nearest trashcan he added, “Minseok just took it out to the back, though.” The man’s voice was barely a whisper, and Baekhyun let out a dry laugh, already done with him.

He let go of his tight hold and stepped back, “thank you, babe.” He threw another cute smile over his shoulder before he all but ran away from the table, leaving Nam-gi’s friends to question what the hell had happened there. Baekhyun didn’t care. He already knew the asshole had been bragging about things he had supposedly done to Baekhyun. Things Baekhyun himself had no recollection of happening, which he told everyone that asked, and that made it all the funnier to watch Nam-gi explain a situation where he slept with Baekhyun without the younger remembering anything about it. Right now though, Baekhyun didn’t care about the possible entertainment his actions could provide, all he cared about was getting to the back and finding that goddamn flyer.

Minseok shot him a look as he passed by the bar, and Baekhyun told him, “that’s going to overflow,” talking about the beer glass he was holding in his hand. A second later, just as Baekhyun had predicted, the beer reached the edge of the glass and started pouring out over Minseok’s hand. His boss cursed, quickly closing the tap and setting the glass down before he started shaking the beer off his hand, but Baekhyun had already walked on.

In the corner, right next to the door, were three bags of trash ready to be taken out. Baekhyun sighed as he looked at them, knowing that this would be less than pleasant to go through, and there was a part of his brain that yelled ‘that’s what you get for being so damn slow’ at him, which he quickly shut up before getting down on his knees.

He knew the things he could expect inside the trash were things that could either get him injured or make him vomit, and so he hoped that the flyer would be somewhere in the top layer of the bags. He was hoping to get lucky, considering how it had only been a few hours since the whole incident to begin with, and fortunately for Baekhyun it was only early night. That meant most puking incidents wouldn’t be until later on, and he was truly thankful that he was at least saved from that horror.

There was, however, a half-eaten burger staring at Baekhyun the second he opened the first bag. The fries and sauce had gone in there along with it, making everything sticky, and Baekhyun took a deep breath of fresh air before he slowly picked up an unused napkin to push the uneaten food out of the way.

There were old flyers underneath that had used to line the walls, promoting the artists that had been booked for that month, along with a broken beer glass. Nothing interesting. Definitely not the crumbled up piece of paper Baekhyun had thrown back at the group of drunkards.

Feeling a little less confident than before, Baekhyun let the first bag be and moved on to the next, opening it to find an empty pack of cigarettes along with a piece of paper that made his heart jump with the hope of him actually having found the flyer. It was balled up the way Baekhyun had done with his, but as he slowly unfolded the edges he saw nothing but a phone number on the piece of paper along with a ‘hey, call me ;-)’ the writer had left there.

He balled it up again before throwing it back and he didn’t waste much time before going over to the third. Again, he came up with nothing, and he wondered if maybe Nam-gi had done this on purpose. Maybe he had known that Baekhyun would end up on his knees with his hands in the trash, looking for that paper, and he had done it to spite him. God, did assholes like him actually have the brains for such a move? Baekhyun didn’t know. All he knew was that the paper he was looking for wasn’t there.

“Baekhyun?” he heard behind him, Minseok’s voice uncertain as he watched his friend’s back from afar. It was stupid, so incredibly stupid, the way he suddenly broke down in tears. He felt like an idiot, like this whole day was one big mistake, and he wished he had stayed in bed so none of this would have happened. Chanyeol, Minseok and Kyungsoo… none of them should matter to him, yet today proved how much all of them actually did.

Baekhyun felt the tears on his cheeks, realised it was the second time in one week that he was crying, and he felt weak and useless. He hated feeling weak, but he couldn’t stop it now. He let his shoulders sag and squeezed his eyes shut against the teardrops that kept coming, but he couldn’t stifle his sniffling along with it.

Minseok noticed, of course he did, he was watching Baekhyun intently after all. When his friend heard him make a sound, he instantly rushed over to get to him. Warm arms came up around him, all their previous bickering immediately forgotten, and Minseok hushed him while holding him close as Baekhyun cried. Two hands were patting his back slowly, and it was comforting, but Baekhyun hated it nonetheless.

He was supposed to be able to do this all by himself. This life, he only had himself to live with. Everyone else would just leave one day, and Baekhyun wouldn’t let himself get hurt once that day came. It was why he held everyone at an arm’s length, with Minseok being closest to him, and Chanyeol clearly being the exception at this point in time even though that had nothing to do with what Baekhyun wanted.  

“What are you trying to achieve?” Minseok asked eventually as Baekhyun calmed down enough that he no longer needed to have Minseok’s embrace to keep himself from falling apart. His friend sat back, looking at the mess Baekhyun had made of the trashbags, and then back at Baekhyun, who was wiping his nose.

“Chanyeol…” Baekhyun whispered quietly, as if that should be explanation enough, but Minseok stared at him with his eyebrows furrowed together like he didn’t understand, so Baekhyun added, “he’s gone. Chanyeol is gone. He left.”

Tired of trying to keep himself upright, Baekhyun fell back on his ass, wrapping his arms around his knees, and he dropped his head on top of it too.

“What do you mean he’s gone? Wasn’t that the point?” Minseok asked as he started closing the bags full of trash again, the neat freak in him coming out, “I thought you wanted him gone.” Unlike the smugness Baekhyun expected to hear in his friend’s voice, all he heard was worry, and he knew that he probably looked too sad to make fun of right now.

“I did…” Baekhyun started, pausing as he tried to find words that would explain what exactly had happened. "But then, as I was walking, I was lost in thought and I walked the way I usually would, which led me straight to his spot, you know,” Baekhyun grumbled quietly, “the one that he’s been waiting at for the past few days. And I realised it too late. I was worried maybe he’d see me again, but then he wasn’t there at all.”

“Maybe he went to get something to drink, or found a bathroom. He can’t just stay there 24/7 you know. He’s still human,” Minseok reminded him, after which he laughed at his own inside joke, and he shrugged his shoulders, “or I assume he is. Anyway, the point is, he might be back?” he was trying to cheer Baekhyun up, that much was clear, “and then you can go and talk to him the way you secretly want to but are too proud to admit.”

Baekhyun looked away, hiding his face a little more as Minseok said that, and he muttered his reply against his shirt, hoping somewhere deep down that his friend wouldn’t hear him, “I waited around for two hours, though,” but of course he wasn’t that lucky, his friend had great hearing.

The sound of Minseok dropping an already broken glass was enough to startle Baekhyun out of his hermit position and away from the guy. Minseok was staring though, not even bothered by the pieces of glass surrounding him, and he blinked as his lips parted, “oh. You waited around?” he asked, and slowly through the cracks of his surprise, Baekhyun could see the sly smile grow on his best friend’s face, “you had actually planned to go see him ever since you left the bar, hadn’t you? Admit it.”

Baekhyun shook his head, not wanting to admit such a thing, and he played with his fingers instead so he didn’t have to look at Minseok’s stupid face. “No, I didn’t. Really, Minseok,” he tried to sound convincing, “but I kind of came to the conclusion that maybe I should.” He was so good at making it feel as if he had come to that conclusion by himself, but judging by the chuckle from Minseok’s side of the room, he wasn’t fooling anyone.

“So after coming to that conclusion and waiting for two hours for Chanyeol to return,” Minseok started summing up, “you come in here, attack Nam-gi and start going through the garbage,” he hummed as he finished tying together the last bag, “yeah, no, totally not strange at all. Baekhyun, did the cold get to you?”

Minseok was laughing lowly and he leaned over to press a hand to Baekhyun’s forehead playfully, “actually, you do feel warm,” he commented, but Baekhyun was already shaking his head at him, “I know it looks strange,” he agreed, “but it was all with a reason. Because I know that the flyer Nam-gi had, it held Chanyeol’s phone number. I was looking for the flyer, but it’s gone.”

Baekhyun looked up at his friend with a sigh, forevermore frustrated with how he hadn’t managed to find it, “guess that’s just my luck for taking too long to make up my mind, right?” He shrugged then, actually trying to shrug off the disappointment, “now only fate can bring us together again.”

Baekhyun rolled over on his knees before getting up and walking to his locker. “I’ll clear the floor and put the trash away to make up for my bad behaviour,” he told his boss as he got out his coat and shrugged it on, “and then I’ll come back and finish my shift,” he promised. Minseok had already opened his mouth, ready to protest, but Baekhyun bent slightly before he went to grab the broom.

It took a while before Minseok got up to leave, and by the time he did, Baekhyun was done sweeping and ready to walk out with the bags in his hands. His boss turned away awkwardly, as if he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do, and so Baekhyun did. After all, there was one thing he hadn’t fixed yet, besides the whole Chanyeol thing.

“Minseok?” he brought out, the door half open when Baekhyun paused, turning his head to look at his boss’s back as he made his way over to the door leading inside the bar. The man stopped, his shoulder already leaning against the wood when he looked back to meet Baekhyun’s gaze. “Tell Kyungsoo I’m sorry for how I treated him. Oh, and tell him I admire him for his courage.”

His friend nodded, “I will, although I’m sure it would mean a hundred times more if he’d hear that from you.” But Baekhyun shrugged, smiled apologetically and before he turned back he replied with a simple, “I’ve already hurt my pride enough, Minseok,” at which his boss laughed before he followed Baekhyun’s example. Both of them disappeared through their respective doors, feeling a lot lighter.

~

Baekhyun woke up with a giant headache and a runny nose, and as he dragged himself out of bed he felt all the energy he had only just gained slowly seep out like he was a balloon that was deflating. A sneeze topped it all off, making Baekhyun’s tired body bend over, and he was sure that if he hadn’t stretched himself to stand up again he would have puked all over his kitchen floor.

He felt like shit. To simply put it, he felt worse than he did after a hellish fuck that included a lot of kinky things most humans would frown upon. And Baekhyun had often felt like ridding himself of his own skin after such a night, but this, this somehow beat that feeling.

He wasn’t sure what ‘this’ was, it was something he suspected to be an illness, one he hadn’t had in this intensity before, but he was sure about one thing: it had to fucking go.

Groaning, Baekhyun got his clothes ready for after his shower, and he just hoped that the warm water would soothe him and make him feel better like he had a feeling it would. He slowly let his pyjama pants fall, the fabric pooling at his feet before he stepped out of them, and he tugged off his shirt without great difficulty.

The cold hitting his skin instantly got him to shiver all over, and really, Baekhyun didn’t often desire to spend more time in his bed, because usually it felt like wasting time to him, but right now he wanted it desperately. He wanted nothing more than to get back under the covers and close his eyes, to ignore the painful feeling in his bones and just get today over with.

But as he knew already, life wasn’t easy nor was it fair, and Baekhyun had a shift to start in approximately two hours. It was a short shift, only an hour or four, because Baekhyun was supposed to have one day a week to himself, but Minseok had needed an extra hand due to it being busy. He knew his friend was looking to hire another worker, but up until then Baekhyun would have to jump in from time to time, which usually wasn’t a problem because it provided him with more money and some company, but now that he felt like utter shit, he wished he could stay home.

The warm water was nice, but it was hardly a magical remedy for his runny nose and aching body, and so when Baekhyun turned it off he didn’t feel much better than before. Still he got dressed, breathing heavily as he tried to get his tight jeans to fit, and then, with drops of sweat still on his forehead, he walked to his kitchen to get himself a cup of tea.

Tea helped, right? When humans were ill, didn’t they drink lots of it? With honey? Baekhyun should have honey somewhere, maybe he could try it out.

He sighed and dropped to his knees in front of his overly-stuffed cupboard in order to find the honey somewhere, failing miserably because there was simply too much irrelevant stuff in there to push aside.

After pouting because the thing didn’t appear to be jumping at him no matter how much he wished for it to pop up, Baekhyun threw the cupboard shut and stood up to get the boiling water. He finished his cup of tea and dragged it with him to his spot at the window, where he easily curled up, feeling slightly better with the warmth of the cup to accompany him.

As always when he sat there, his thoughts trailed to Chanyeol. Usually that could range from anything simple to deeper thoughts about the future and his past life, and although Baekhyun always tried to stray away from that unsure path, it often couldn’t be helped.

Today though, today all Baekhyun could think about was how none of it mattered anymore. Chanyeol was gone.

Baekhyun had a hard time telling himself that he had dragged himself out of bed for his best friend, when in reality he knew very well that more than anything, he wanted to walk past that spot and see if he was really gone. He had sworn to himself that if Chanyeol wouldn’t be back again today, he would give up on him. If he wasn’t back then Baekhyun would let it all go the way he had wanted to do from the start.

But if Chanyeol’d be back… well, a deal was a deal. If he’d be there, Baekhyun would confront him again, all with the intention to tell him the truth. He would try to make things right, to see Chanyeol in his own light instead of in Jaehyun’s, and then he’d see wherever they would end up. He was trying not to think so far ahead, but his heart was beating loudly at the possibility of him finding his first real love.

Putting on two scarves rather than one and tucking his sleeves into his gloves, he left the warmth and comfort of his apartment and walked into the depressing darkness of his hallway. Taking the stairs wasn’t the smartest plan, mostly because by the time Baekhyun reached the ground floor he felt like his shirt was soaked in sweat from all the layers of clothing he was wearing, but then he was outside and ever more thankful he hadn’t taken anything off yet.

Sticking his hands into his pockets for extra warmth and his nose into the scarves as not to show everyone his awfully leaking nose, he started walking to work. He realised he was going to be early, because for once he wasn’t taking a detour, and so unless Chanyeol would be there, Baekhyun would actually be on time for his shift. Still he had his fingers crossed, hoping that he’d have a reason to be late for work nevertheless.

He knew Minseok wouldn’t mind, not if this was about Chanyeol and his happiness, and Baekhyun was vaguely aware of how it was bad to take advantage of having such a nice boss, but he couldn’t help it. He was just very bad at being punctual most of the time, and especially in such instances as now.

Baekhyun picked up his pace as he neared the street where it had all happened. God, it was so cheesy to know they had their own spot now, one where their two previous meetings had taken place, and Baekhyun really shouldn’t smile about it but he still did. He couldn’t help but be excited.

He was excited to see Chanyeol, nervous as well, but mostly excited, especially now his friends had shown him that talking to Chanyeol was the right choice to make. He could always blame them now if things were to go wrong, and he’d surely have someone to fall back on in case it all came down in a way Baekhyun couldn’t have predicted, which all was reassuring.

His heartbeat picked up the closer he got, and he couldn’t hold back the smile that had started to form. He was frightened of being judged, even more scared that the feelings he had for Chanyeol would turn out to be genuine, but he was prepared to take the risk. He felt that same familiar excitement he had felt as an angel, because he knew an opportunity was near, and he had missed that feeling.

Turning the final corner, Baekhyun started to skip his steps, trying to make himself taller so he could look over the people that crowded the pavement, but he was still too far away to really see. Nevertheless, he kept tiptoeing, hoping to see that spot, but it wasn’t until he was near that he actually got to see past the stream of walking people to the spot that had been Chanyeol’s.

Had been, because it was empty. For the second time in two days Baekhyun felt his heart in his shoes, his smile slipping off and his bones aching even more than before.

Chanyeol wasn’t there. He hadn’t returned like Baekhyun had hoped he would, and the last bit of hope he had still had, that last spark of light, slowly extinguished inside his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise Chanyeol isn't far away. He'll be back before you know it... 


	8. Fever dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baekhyun had predicted a lot of people to be on the other side of his door. Maybe it was the owner that had come to talk to him about his rent, or maybe it was that friendly old woman who somehow always ended up getting his mail. Maybe it was just Minseok or Kyungsoo, stopping by to see if he was really resting well, no matter how unlikely that idea seemed with how busy they both were. But none of them were on the other side of the wood.
> 
> On the other side was someone Baekhyun had been longing to see, someone he had never expected to just show up on his doorstep, and so really, he had to pinch his own arm in order to tell himself this wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a dream.

 

 

Walking into the bar both feeling sick and disappointed definitely made him stand out in a crowd of people having a good time and so Baekhyun was evermore thankful that he only had four hours to go before he could return to his bed and sleep it off. It would still be early then, not even dinnertime yet, and he hoped that he’d be able to get better in time for his late-night shift the day after.

However, when he walked to his spot behind the bar, his leather apron already tied around his waist as usual, his top buttons undone to reveal his choker, half a collarbone and some of his chest, Minseok didn’t look at him as if he was impressed.

Usually he’d take one look at Baekhyun and would either button him up or undo another one, depending on the crowd he knew was in the bar, before telling him he looked good and to get to work. Today though, today he frowned as he looked at Baekhyun, and the smile that had been on his face before he had laid eyes on Baekhyun died down.

“You look like shit,” Minseok announced the second he reached his friend, who had already turned to the bar to clean the few empty glasses that stood there. Pretending not to hear would be the easiest way to get Minseok to budge, although Baekhyun doubted he was going to let it slip.

Very quietly he sniffed, an attempt at trying to stop his nose from running with so many others around him, watching him. He was doing a great job of acting as if it was just him and the glasses, and he continued to ignore Minseok for another minute, but then his boss stopped him from getting the next glass by grabbing his wrist.

“ _Baekhyun,”_ Minseok said, his voice ringing clear, a threatening sound to it that told Baekhyun that he better not fuck around with him. Annoyed and knowing he couldn’t run away any longer without making things even more difficult for himself, Baekhyun sighed and turned to his friend, barely glancing at him before he tried to tug himself free, “It’s just a cold, Minseok, no reason to worry.”

He managed to get his hand free from Minseok’s hold, but it was only because his boss brought that hand to his forehead to feel it, wiping the layer of sweat that had formed there away with his fingers, “that’t not just a cold. You have a fever, you’re limping as if it’s physically hurting you, and your eyes are drooping. Did you even sleep last night?”

Baekhyun kept quiet, knew that the wrong words would only make his friend worry even more, but Minseok took his silence as an answer before Baekhyun could think of anything fitting. “So you didn’t,” he concluded as he scoffed, and Baekhyun wanted to throw a fit.

“So what?” he threw back, stepping away to get himself a napkin, which he used to dab his head and wipe his nose, “it’s not that surprising, is it? After the day I had yesterday? With Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo, and then Chanyeol again.”

Minseok looked guilty, like he hadn’t meant for it to sound like he was judging Baekhyun, but Baekhyun kept his eyes down. “I get it, I wasn’t saying it was surprising or that it’s your fault,” his friend said as he stepped closer to Baekhyun again, his hands coming up to touch the boy’s waist, “you are, however, at fault for not taking care of yourself, you big idiot.”

Baekhyun was about to ask what the hell Minseok was doing, when he noticed with a startle how the guy was undoing the tie on his apron. He stuttered, mouth dropping open, as he realised what Minseok was doing and why. “No,” he started arguing, “no, Minseok, I am _not_ missing another day of work.”

He tried to pry Minseok’s hands away from him, but his boss was stronger than him. Unlike Baekhyun, he had a muscular body, even if his clothes hid just how buffed he was, Baekhyun knew. He knew because he may or may not have walked in to him and Kyungsoo in a very compromising and naked situation once. Just once, really.

“You’re not working like this,” Minseok argued, “I’m saying that as your boss, which means you shut up and listen.” He was playing the boss card, which was a fair move on his side, but Baekhyun was stubborn, and his boss should have known it.

“No, I won’t. Minseok, I’m this close,” he held his fingers closely together, “to not being able to pay my rent next month. I’m living off of ramen most days, you cannot do this to me. You can’t force me to go home.” He was half out of breath after putting so much energy in his defence, but he tried to act like everything was fine nonetheless.

Minseok’s hands were on his arms, as he was slowly pushing him away towards the back, and no matter how hard Baekhyun tried to fight it, he was too weak. Maybe on his good days he could have at least made the fight last longer, but today he was nothing but a bag of bones feeling lifeless and frail. It wasn’t that he didn’t know Minseok was right, because he knew he was ill, but he needed this.

He needed the money too, of course, but he needed the distraction more. Down here, he had the hopes that something could still happen.

After he had left the empty spot Chanyeol had previously occupied, he had lost himself in his thoughts again. One of his most recent theories was that maybe Chanyeol had left his usual spot to roam the area, to check if Baekhyun was anywhere nearby. Baekhyun was sure he had dropped something about him working somewhere close, and maybe he had remembered that fact and went looking for him.

It was an implausible theory, because if that were true Chanyeol would have found him much sooner, but at least it made Baekhyun hold on, and that was enough for him right then. If he were to stay at home, maybe he would miss the moment Chanyeol walked in here to look for him, and then eventually the guy would really give up. He couldn’t let that happen.

Minseok hadn’t stopped pushing, though, he was still trying to get Baekhyun through the door, and so Baekhyun knew he had to take to desperate measures, “if you send me home I’ll quit!” he yelled, which only make Minseok huff, because he knew Baekhyun was bluffing. Of course he was, but Minseok wasn’t supposed to be so immune to it.

“Fine, I won’t quit, but I’ll get a job on the side. I could go to Nam-gi,” he pretended to be thinking out loud, knowing this would strike a nerve somewhere, “and ask him his price. I’ve done it before, back in hell, it’s easy. Just close your eyes and it will be over before you know it. Ka-ching.”

He knew it would piss Minseok off, and sure it did. His friend started hitting his arm, yelling in his ear, “awae, have you gone crazy?!” Baekhyun knew this would anger him, because Minseok had so often talked to him about love, about how sex was reserved for people who meant something to you, not strangers, and so of course this made him go nuts.

“I don’t care. I’ll fucking pay you, Baekhyun. I’ll pay you okay,” he sounded so desperate now that Baekhyun found himself feeling guilty about how he was threating his best friend, making him upset on purpose. “You don’t have to worry about your rent, just go home and rest, please. You need to take better care of yourself,” Minseok begged, his hits having gone soft along with his voice.

Baekhyun knew it was because Minseok felt bad for him, about everything that had happened to him, but especially about Chanyeol, which was why Baekhyun hadn’t really wanted to be fully honest with him. Minseok was too soft at heart, a hard shell with such a warm core, almost like a marshmallow, and Baekhyun knew telling him would make him worry more.

Still, he couldn’t let his best friend go to such lengths and turn him down just with the excuse of money, which was why he sat himself down on the bench in the staff room. He used the napkin he was still holding to wipe his forehead again, and he waited a moment for his breathing to get back to normal.

“I wanted to get to work because I wanted to see if maybe he was back,” Baekhyun said quietly, knowing that he didn’t even have to mention a name for Minseok to know who he was talking about. “He wasn’t there. He was really gone. But then I thought that my words couldn’t have possibly been strong enough to actually push him away, right? Especially not because he claims he loves Jaehyun so much. So,” Baekhyun concluded, “I thought, if I’m at work, maybe he will drop by and find me here.”

He avoided his friends’ eyes as he played with the napkin, “I was glad my shift isn’t too long, but I really want to stay, Minseok. I promise, once I’m off I will go home and take care of myself, but please. I need to stay in case he gets here.” No matter how much Baekhyun hated showing this side of himself that Chanyeol’s presence had so easily brought out, he had to in order to get what he wanted.

“I miss him,” Baekhyun admitted, “I miss Chanyeol. Running into him was the most exciting thing that has happened to me in my year as a human.  I have to find him again.” He threw his head back, showing Minseok his puppy eyes even though his boss had long since gotten immune to them.

There was an understanding in Minseok’s eyes, one that told Baekhyun that he felt for him, but then Minseok’s mouth became a thin line, “you don’t have to. I know about it now. If he shows up, I’ll let him know that the boy he is looking for works right here, only not today, because today he is in his bed sweating out his fever.”

His boss moved and took Baekhyun’s coat off its hanger, holding it open for the boy to stick his arms into, “don’t fight me on this, Baekhyun. I may not know anything about your world, but I know everything about mine. Go home, go to bed, sleep it off and call me about how you feel later, got it?”

It felt like an order, one Baekhyun knew he couldn’t win any longer. He had played all his cards, and so, although begrudgingly, he got up and made his way over to Minseok. Sticking his arms in his coat, he let himself pout, one final shot at getting what he wanted, but his boss did nothing but smile when he finally turned him.

“Now don’t be sad,” Minseok said as he got the first scarf wrapped around Baekhyun’s neck, “you won’t have to worry about anything, only about how you’re going to get home without puking your guts out. I promise.”

Baekhyun knew that is his friend was promising him something, then the promise would never be broken, and despite the fact that Minseok had no say in whatever Chanyeol did, Baekhyun’s tired body couldn’t do anything but believe him.

After the second scarf had been wrapped around his neck, Minseok held on to his upper arms and turned him around before he started pushing him to the back door. “Drink enough liquids, water or tea preferably, and get some sleep. If you have some painkillers, take those as well,” he ordered, like he was a big brother offering advice.

Baekhyun sniffed as he stepped outside, easily walking along with his friend rather than letting himself be pushed, “I don’t think I have much at home anymore, but I’ll see if I can buy some on my way back,” he promised, “okay now, _dad_?”

Minseok wrinkled his nose at that and gave Baekhyun one last push, “aish, don’t call me that. It’s weird as hell,” he waved him off, and Baekhyun snorted before he turned away, waving back for a second before sticking his hands into his pockets and walking off, laughing one more time as he threw over his shoulder, “I guess that’s reserved for Kyungsoo then.”

“Get your ass out of here before I smack you to another universe,” Minseok yelled after him, making Baekhyun laugh so loud he ended up with another runny nose that was so bad it had started wetting his chin. Worth it, though, so worth it.

He walked home with a slight smile, because regardless of how shitty he felt, he was glad he had friends that cared about him. Without him Minseok would be running around at the bar, probably overworking himself, and he hoped that he’d call Kyungsoo to ask for help, but he felt warm inside at the thought of how his friend would rather be that busy than have Baekhyun be ill.

~

The moment Baekhyun got home he took off his coat and went straight to bed, not even bothering taking off his work clothes before he did, and he fell into a deep sleep only to wake up a few hours later drenched in sweat. For a second he didn’t know where he was and what was happening to him, but then he slowly sat up and saw how he was only in his room.

His sheets were gross, slightly damp from his sweat, and his clothes were even worse with the way they stuck to his skin. He knew that it wasn’t acceptable with how little money he had left in the month, but he’d have to take another shower now. He just had to, even if it meant living on water rather than tea and cutting on the little chocolate he allowed himself to buy.

Peeling the layers of clothing from his body along with his bracelet and his choker, Baekhyun quickly got himself undressed only to find out that being naked was somehow worse. He started shivering all over, his arms wrapping around his lean waist as he tried to keep himself warm, and he shuffled into the shower in a rush to warm himself up.

He tried to keep the spray soft, so he could stand underneath it for longer, but no matter how long he stood there, the shower only provided him with temporary warmth. The moment he turned off the tap he was cold again within seconds. His fingers felt frozen as he rubbed the towel to both dry and warm himself, and when he got dressed he made sure to pick warm clothes.

Oversized sweatpants that were made of a thick cotton, a white turtle neck shirt with a collar so high half his face could disappear in it if he wanted, and two pairs of socks, no exaggeration. He still felt cold, but he knew it was just the fever now. He had dressed himself so comfortably that he couldn’t actually be cold.

To try and make himself even warmer, which would likely end up to be a pointless attempt, he put on some water for a cup of tea. While it boiled, he went to fetch himself a blanket that he could wrap around himself once his tea was done, and he threw it in his tiny nook at the window. It would be the perfect hiding spot as it was right above the heater.

He slowly hummed a song while pouring the water into his mug, glad that the illness at least wasn’t affecting his throat as much. As he sang, “hello angel, you are like a painting,” his voice filling his room, “when I look at the sky, I can only see you,” he walked to the windowsill.

It was funny to him, the way humans looked at angels and demons, the way they called each other those names as if it was nothing but playful banter or a romantic move. In a way he supposed it was, when talking about the songs about angels, but at the same time he thought it was a whole lot of bullshit. In the end there was a reason humans and angels were different.

The song he was singing was an example of how certain bits were just right, like the part about ‘because you are the star that the sky dropped’, because like Baekhyun, there were fallen angels, but they weren’t as perfect at the song made it seem. He was far from perfect, far from the image the songs always described.

Even if he had been, there was still a major difference, because the songs often referred to the angels as beautiful beings that were being loved, when in reality, it would be more common for an angel to sing about such a thing. Humans didn’t understand love the way angels did, after all it was their life’s mission to spread it, and so humans could never truly capture what an angel was like.

Baekhyun put his mug down in the windowsill and got the blanket, which he wrapped himself in before sitting down. After closing the curtain behind him he picked up his mug again and settled down with his head against the window.

The street beneath him was almost deserted, which wasn’t entirely strange for this time of day. He watched a few people pass, a group of men that already seemed drunk despite it being early afternoon and a girl yelling into her phone, bawling her eyes out. Probably love problems, knowing humans.

He sighed against his mug, closing his eyes to everything around him as he took sips of the warm tea that he tried to feel all the way in his bones. For a little bit it helped, and at least his nose had cleared from the warmth of the shower, but the question was how long it would last.

When there was a knock at his door, Baekhyun looked up from his spot in surprise. For a second he thought maybe it were his fever dreams and he had imagined it, but as he waited, holding his breath to make sure he wouldn’t miss a sound, he heard it again. A soft, insecure sounding knock that would have been lost if Baekhyun had been watching TV or listening to music, but now, in the deafening silence of his room, it rang clear.

Yet he waited for a second knock, just to make sure, before he slowly pushed himself up from his seat. Pulling the curtain aside far enough to crawl out of his hiding place, he made his way over, setting down his mug on the kitchen counter before he walked over to his door.

He brought up a hand to quickly brush his hair a little and he made sure he had fixed the collar of his shirt and straightened his sweatpants before he unlocked his door and pulled it open.

Baekhyun had predicted a lot of people to be on the other side of his door. Maybe it was the owner that had come to talk to him about his rent, or maybe it was that friendly old woman who somehow always ended up getting his mail. Maybe it was just Minseok or Kyungsoo, stopping by to see if he was really resting well, no matter how unlikely that idea seemed with how busy they both were. He had even thought of how occasionally some religious people had managed to slip into the building. But none of them were on the other side of the wood.

On the other side was someone Baekhyun had been longing to see, someone he had never expected to just show up on his doorstep, and so really, he had to pinch his own arm in order to tell himself this wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a dream.

There was a Tupperware box in the guy’s hands and a bag slung over his shoulder, and his facial expression made him look very much like a scared puppy. He looked as if he was scared Baekhyun would take one look at him and slam the door shut in his face. It was a fair enough expectation after everything Baekhyun had done to him so far, but that had changed now.

Baekhyun looked at him, at his half-drenched hairdo which told him that it had started raining outside, at his soft smile as he carefully stretched his hands out to offer Baekhyun the container in his hands, and all he felt was the quick pitter-patter of his heart having gone haywire.

“Minseok called and told me where you lived. He told me to bring some soup, some painkillers, and for me not to call you Jaehyun,” the guy was very pointedly staring at the box in his hands rather than at Baekhyun, probably still afraid that he would be turned down now, but Baekhyun leaned against his door and smiled.

Relief flooded him, and he wasn’t sure why, but after the scare he had gone through all he cared about was how it wasn’t over. He wasn’t gone, not like Baekhyun had thought he was. “Chanyeol,” he breathed out, smiling as he said the name, and his hands came up to take the box. Their fingers touched for a moment, but Chanyeol quickly pulled his away the second he knew Baekhyun had a good hold on it and he visibly swallowed with his eyes still gazing downwards.

Chanyeol cleared his throat, his hands falling limply to his sides, and he said, “yeah, I’m here,” and then his eyes moved up, meeting Baekhyun’s with this curious look in them, as if he didn’t understand what was going on but was beyond ready to find out, and when he spoke again, all Baekhyun felt was the pitter-patter of his heart increasing at rocket speed, “…Baekhyun.”


	9. Baechu Doenjang Guk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaehyun’s boyfriend was staring at Baekhyun until the boy looked up. It was then that his gaze dropped, his hand tightening around the can of beer he was still holding, and without a word he raised the can to his lips and turned the bottom up, drinking until it was empty, "I'm too sober for this."

 

Baekhyun couldn't stop staring at Chanyeol as he stood there, looking more nervous with every passing second where Baekhyun didn't say anything. Baekhyun, to his defence, was a little shocked having heard Chanyeol say his name rather than Jaehyun, the way he had done before, and that was why he found himself without a voice. No matter how he tried, nothing came out, and Baekhyun was starting to get frustrated with himself.

What shocked him more than hearing his own name falling from Chanyeol’s lips, though, was the way his heart had slammed itself against his ribs, crushing his lungs slightly. It wasn’t what he expected to feel, and he wondered how much of Jaehyun’s feelings for Chanyeol applied to himself. If he wasn’t attracted to the man in front of him, why would his heart behave this way at hearing something as stupid as his own name?

No, that was just out of the question, no matter what. For now at least.

Eventually Chanyeol scratched behind his ear, realising that Baekhyun wasn’t going to answer him, and he raised his eyebrows as he dared to ask, "aren't you going to let me in now?" It was strange to see his face expecting the possible rejection, as if he was so scared that him reaching out again would result in yet another let-down. 

Baekhyun though, he was still so lost in all the thoughts that had suddenly popped up in his head, like the fact that Chanyeol had said, 'Minseok called', and he knew even though right now didn't feel like the right time for this conversation, with him being ill and all, he desperately needed answers. 

"Do you believe me now?" Baekhyun asked once he retrieved his ability to speak, and he hated how he managed to sound so hopeful despite him trying to keep his emotions at bay.

The second he asked that question, Chanyeol's facial expression went from nervous to guilty. He looked apologetic, and his eyes fell all the way down to his shoes as he stuttered, "uh, I- not yet? But, I mean, aren't I supposed to hear your explanation before I can?" 

Baekhyun hated how that was without a doubt a good argument. He knew he couldn't just expect Chanyeol to take his word for it when he said he wasn't Jaehyun but Baekhyun, especially since the boy had already established that this was in fact Jaehyun's body. And so he stepped aside, bending his head as he waited for Chanyeol to walk in before he closed the door behind them. 

Chanyeol let his eyes roam the room, taking in how Baekhyun lived while he took off his coat and stuck his scarf into the sleeve before he dropped it on the single chair in the corner. Baekhyun, in the meantime, went to his little kitchenette to put away the soup for later. He felt a little embarrassed, his cheeks turning red at the thought that Chanyeol was actually in his home. But this was what he had wanted, right? Then why did it scare him so much?

"So..." he started, his hands tapping against his thighs, just as Chanyeol started saying, "you're definitely a lot cleaner than Jaehyun." It left them both quiet as they watched each other, and Baekhyun felt an uncomfortable tension between them that he hadn't really noticed before. He smiled, a little forced, feeling strange being compared to the soul that used to live in his host body.

"I'm sorry, I-" Chanyeol brought out, but Baekhyun waved it off before he turned to his fridge, changing the subject so neither of them would have to deal with the uneasiness, "can I get you something to drink? I don't have a lot, but yeah. Either tea, water or beer." He looked over his shoulder to where he could see Chanyeol standing with his hands awkwardly swinging back and forth beside his body. 

"Uh, a beer might be good, I guess," he laughed a little and Baekhyun turned back to his fridge where he took one of the cans of beer. One of the advantages of working in a bar was how he was able to buy cheap beer and so the bottom drawer of his fridge was full of it. 

He took one for himself as well, even though he wasn't sure it was good for him to drink with a fever, but he could do with something taking the edge off things. When Chanyeol saw him get out two, however, he shook his head and walked up to Baekhyun without any hesitation.

His hand found Baekhyun's wrist and he tugged it away from the beer can with gentle fingers. Baekhyun looked at him in surprise, not because of the beer but because of the touch, and when Chanyeol realised what had happened he let go as if he had been burnt. He seemed to catch himself, realising he had moved out of habit, and he stepped away as he let go, although he did not apologise.

"You're sick," he told Baekhyun, "you shouldn't be drinking beer right now." He looked around until his eyes fell on the box he had brought with him, and with determined steps he walked over to it, "I brought you soup, you should eat it now it is still warm. I didn’t bring it over for you to let it go to waste. " 

Without any shame he started rummaging through Baekhyun's drawers until he found the cutlery, exclaiming a loud, "aha!" as he held up a spoon in his hands. Baekhyun watched in wonder as the guy moved about as if this wasn't the first time in the apartment, as if they weren't strangers, and although they weren't technically, Baekhyun still felt like a lot of that comfort had to be linked to Jaehyun.

Chanyeol got the lid off the box, and the kitchen instantly filled with the smell of warm soup, steam rising from it, and Baekhyun didn't realise just how hungry he was until his nose got a whiff of it. "I didn't make it myself, I didn't really have enough time to do that, but it is home made," Chanyeol said while he stirred the soup a few times, "there's a food stall down my street that is run by this sweet old couple. He sells and she cooks, and they always remind me of home, back in Anyang." 

He provided the information so easily, the previous discomfort no longer surrounding them, and Baekhyun found himself leaning against the counter listening to the taller one talk. It felt nice, having his presence around without it being strange, and he hoped that once he told Chanyeol the truth, the guy wouldn't just run out of here. No matter how unlikely, he really hoped they could still have something like this once it was all out in the open.

Baekhyun absentmindedly opened the can of beer that was meant for Chanyeol, and when the boy looked up, his curls shaking a little as he moved, they wordlessly traded places. Laughing a little after they sort of bumped into each other, not sure who would go right and who would go left, Baekhyun hid his smile by looking down and let his hands curl around the warmth of the soup. 

His smile slipped off rather fast when he thought of how soon he's have to tell Chanyeol that Jaehyun had killed himself, and suddenly the air didn’t feel as light anymore. It was a bitter reminder of how he couldn't let himself enjoy this yet, not until Chanyeol knew about everything, because chances were that the boy only acted this carefree around him now because it felt like he was finally with Jaehyun again. Whether he believed Baekhyun when he said he wasn't Jaehyun or not, it was likely nothing but habit the way he kept smiling Baekhyun's way.

Baekhyun took the soup and walked over to his couch, his little nook forgotten now that he had company, and he sat himself down on one side. As expected Chanyeol followed him, flopping down next to him, seen as there was no other place where he could sit. Baekhyun's room wasn't exactly big enough for more chairs. 

Chanyeol kept his eyes on Baekhyun as he took the first spoonful to his mouth, and as he swallowed the warm soup he closed his eyes and let out a content moan, something that made the guy next to him laugh. When Baekhyun opened his eyes again, Chanyeol finally tore his eyes away from him and took a sip of his beer, comfortably leaning back into the couch.

"I'm glad you like it," Chanyeol told him with a soft, content smile while Baekhyun kept eating, his stomach thanking him silently and he was glad it made him feel slightly better. It wasn't until the box was almost empty, his body a lot more satisfied, that he spoke up and really looked at Chanyeol, "thank you." 

Chanyeol turned his head to him at the appreciative words he spoke, and although he didn’t say anything in return, his eyes stayed on Baekhyun’s face. It was as if it was hard to look away, Chanyeol was watching him that intently, almost as if he was trying to spot the differences between Jaehyun and Baekhyun, and it made him look away again shyly. Maybe it was a little too soon for this all. 

With Chanyeol’s heart still so set on him being Jaehyun, it could only lead to bad things, which was why Baekhyun decided to start off with something easy, something that wasn't too dangerous yet, but a question he was dying to ask regardless.

"So, Minseok called you, huh? That sneaky bastard," Baekhyun chuckled as he put the last bit of soup away on his tiny coffee table, "what did he say, other than what you already said?" Trying to sound amused, he hoped he could get them to laugh a little before moving onto more serious topics, and luckily for him, Jaehyun’s lover went along with it.

Chanyeol hummed as he placed his hands in his lap, his beer resting against his thigh, "he said that you were looking for me, which I didn't believe at first. He told me that you had made up your mind and that you wanted to tell me something very important. So I asked him where I could find you, and he said that you weren't at work now. Before I could even say anything else he basically ordered me to go see you and bring some soup, and then he texted me your address.”

The guy finished with a chuckle, almost as if it had been funny the way Minseok had ordered him around, and Baekhyun could understand it very well. It was so easy to imagine the way his friend had sounded, that stern and bossy tone yet so caring and soft. He was a great boss, but more than anything he was a little shit and Baekhyun truly wanted to smack him senseless right now.  

Baekhyun actually felt betrayed by his friend, mostly because of how he had contacted Chanyeol without Baekhyun's permission. Sure, he had wanted to find Chanyeol and he had told Minseok that he wanted to, but this wasn't exactly ideal with him being sick and their setting being his home.

One thing though, one thing hurt more than the rest. The thing Baekhyun picked up from Chanyeol’s words was how their contact had been over the phone. Minseok had texted Chanyeol the address, which meant that Minseok had Chanyeol’s number. Why? How?

Briefly he remembered the look on Minseok’s face as he had found Baekhyun on his knees rummaging through the trash to find a flyer with a phone number. A flyer that had been untraceable. It had to be that, or else it meant that Minseok knew Chanyeol way before this all happened, and that would have been too cruel even for him. Still Baekhyun asked, "how did he even get your number?"

Chanyeol hummed and confirmed Baekhyun's suspicion when he answered with, "when I asked him how he got my number and how he knew about Jaehyun and you, he said he found one of my flyers and decided to call."

Of course, he should have somehow realised that when the trash bags appeared to be empty it wasn't because it had never been in there in the first place, but because someone had taken it before he could. He shouldn't have overestimated Nam-gi's intelligence like that by thinking the asshole had played him, he should have been smarter himself. 

"Son of a bitch," Baekhyun gasped, finally realising how he had been played, and right away he was already thinking about all the torturous ways in which he could get back at Minseok. However, they quickly disappeared as a vision of Kyungsoo's dark eyes appeared in his mind, warning him that hurting Minseok would have consequences. He wasn't going to fuck with D.O's love like that. 

Silence fell around them, but it didn't feel uncomfortable the way Baekhyun had expected it would. They were simply co-existing together, both lost in their thoughts and a little unaware of what the other had on their mind. However, Baekhyun knew silences wouldn't last forever, and this was only the calm before their storm. 

And sure enough, only moments later Chanyeol spoke up, starting the conversation Baekhyun had so dreaded, "but I'm here with a reason, and I think you know what that is.” In the short moment Chanyeol left between speaking, Baekhyun didn’t really need to nod, but he still did. Chanyeol took it as his sign to go on, “you've been very persistent in both telling me that you're not my boyfriend and trying to push me away. So, if you're not Jaehyun, then what the hell is going on?" 

Baekhyun pulled a leg up underneath himself and wrapped his arms around his own waist to keep himself together before he’d feel like everything inside him was being ripped apart at the seams, because he knew that’d come.

Sucking on his lower lip he pushed some hair behind his ear before he retreated his hands into the sleeves of his sweater while he was trying to think of a proper answer, a good way to start his story. "It's a very complicated story that I wasn't willing to tell you before," Baekhyun unsurely started, "both because it will hurt you and also because you will probably not believe me." 

Chanyeol was watching him, Baekhyun could feel eyes on him as he talked, but he tried to avoid his gaze as he forced himself to go on, "because although this is Jaehyun's body, I'm not him. I'm Byun Baekhyun, and I-" he paused for a moment and then decided it would probably be the best to just drop the bomb. So as he closed his eyes, he just let it slip out, "I'm a fallen angel." 

Jaehyun’s boyfriend was staring at Baekhyun until the boy looked up. It was then that his gaze dropped, his hand tightening around the can of beer he was still holding, and without a word he raised the can to his lips and turned the bottom up, drinking until it was empty, "I'm too sober for this." 

Well, at least it was better than laughter…

Baekhyun felt like Chanyeol didn't believe him, or at least not fully, and he couldn’t really tell if he felt surprised by it or not. To him it seemed as if a rational part of Chanyeol’s bain was trying to convince him how this wasn't possible, that angels weren’t real, but the part of him aware of how Baekhyun was different from Jaehyun was too big to call bullshit. 

Not knowing what else to do, Baekhyun kept going. He didn’t want the silence to turn uncomfortable, and if he let Chanyeol get lost in his thoughts too much it definitely would. "I fell from heaven a while ago and fell into hell, where I lived as a demon for almost three decades. A year ago I was granted the possibility to spend my life as a human, and this was the body I got," Baekhyun explained, giving the very short version of an incredibly complex story.

Chanyeol watched him again, his face as white as a sheet now it turned out that Baekhyun was actually being serious about the angel part of his story. He looked almost scared by that though, but then the rational part of his brain seemed to win, and he started laughing almost uncontrollably up to the point where tears were streaming down his face and Baekhyun felt like he was being made fun of, which made his anger grow. 

He balled his hands into fists at his side in an attempt to try and keep himself in check, because what else could he have expected? Had he really thought Chanyeol would just believe whatever he threw at him? He probably thought this was just another shot at trying to push him away, even though this time Baekhyun had tried to find Chanyeol instead of the other way around.

Baekhyun shouldn't let his anger win so easily, but when he forced it to die all it left him with was a sadness. His first time telling anyone the truth about himself and this was the response he got? "You don't believe me," he mumbled, eyes on the beer can in Chanyeol's hands, and he was very tempted to use his powers and just show him, but he was clear-minded enough to remember that he wasn't allowed to do that.

There was, however, no rule about him not being allowed to show his true self, and so in the spur-of-the-moment Baekhyun closed his eyes and called upon himself, breathing in deeply as he did. He felt the tingling awareness of his own soul creep up slowly and when he opened his eyes again, he could feel how much closer to the surface he was.

He whipped his head in Chanyeol's direction, who was wiping the tears away with a big grin still on his face, and demanded his attention. Baekhyun saw it the moment the other’s head started to turn in his direction, because it was a moment he was sure he'd remember forever. The way Chanyeol's eyes widened as they met Baekhyun's, his jaw tightening as the colour of Baekhyun's eyes drew him in, it was smething he'd never forget again.

Chanyeol was the first human to see his true self. The very first.

Baekhyun had to give the guy credit for how he tried to hide his shock and how he didn't run away from the situation but rather drew closer. It was almost as if his eyes were magnets that were sucking Chanyeol in, his face ever coming nearer to Baekhyun’s.

Chanyeol was leaning into his space, his eyes flitting back between Baekhyun's as if he was trying to see if both his eyes were identical, or maybe to determine whether there was truly nothing left of the brown they used to be. It felt like being stared at while naked, and so Baekhyun quickly blinked himself away again.

When Chanyeol stayed that close to him despite how Baekhyun’s eyes were their dull brown once more, his body quiet and still, Baekhyun sucked his lower lip between his teeth and tried to stop the blush that was slowly starting to spread in his cheeks. Really, why did this feel so provoking?

"Uhm," he stuttered, eyes falling down to his hands as he toyed with his shirt again, "so yeah." He silently cursed at himself, annoyed with how he was acting, because this wasn't anything like him. Baekhyun was badass, he didn't take shit from anyone and sure as hell didn't blush because of silly things, but somehow being around Chanyeol made him that much softer. Softer meant weaker, though, and he didn't want to be weak. 

He tried to straighten his shoulders some in order to gain back his confidence, and when Chanyeol stayed quiet he went on, "at least now you know that I'm not lying when I say my name is Baekhyun. This isn't Jaehyun anymore, it's only his body I'm in. My true form can't live without a host, and this is my host body now," he realised how insensitive he was probably sounding, talking about this without taking into account the loss it meant for Chanyeol. He wasn't just explaining his story, he was explaining it to the person in love with his host body. 

"I'm sorry," he brought out then, only seconds after he had finished his hurtful remark. He was trying to put himself into Chanyeol's shoes a bit, to feel what he could possibly feel and to come up with words he would have wanted to hear in that situation. It was harder than he had thought, because nothing could change the truth, and the truth was difficult to cope with.

"I can't bring Jaehyun back for you. You need to let him go," he almost whispered the words as he noticed how the look in Chanyeol's eyes had started to change the more he said. It shut Baekhyun right up, made it feel as if he had been tying a rope around his heart, a tight knot at the end, and now it was beating against its restriction.

"What?" The guy in front of him asked, the tone of his voice so dangerously low it sent an icy shiver down Baekhyun's spine, and he instinctively curled into himself a little bit. He had to remind himself that Chanyeol was experiencing loss and heartbreak this very moment, and those things could bring out a wide range of emotions. Including anger.

"What, so you just took Jaehyun's body?" Chanyeol was starting to sound a little mad, like he couldn't understand what had happened to his lover and why he couldn't come back, and Baekhyun understood that even though it made him defensive too. He didn’t want to be blamed for Jaehyun’s mistakes.

Chanyeol kept raging on, "You decided it was okay to take his body like that? What did you do to him? Tell me!" He was screaming now, his voice so loud it almost broke, and Baekhyun could hear the underlying sadness, the presence of tears behind the pain. It saddened him as well, made it feel as if the rope was being tightened even further around his heart.

Part of him knew that this was only due to the fact that Chanyeol was overwhelmed, and he told himself he shouldn't have expected the guy to understand and let it slip when this was like an actual blow to his heart, just as much as it was to Baekhyun himself. It was just that Baekhyun had been the one to pull the trigger and kill Chanyeol’s hope of Jaehyun ever returning, and so of course Chanyeol was angry and of course that anger was directed at him. 

Nonetheless, Baekhyun cringed at the words, scared that maybe Chanyeol would get agressive. He didn't know the guy well enough to judge whether he was that type of person or not, and the last thing he wanted was to end up in a physical fight. He didn’t think he’d win from the taller one anyway.

Chanyeol noticed Baekhyun’s posture, the fear that radiated from him, and he calmed down a little as if he was aware of how much his words were hurting him. He took a breath and moved back some, but just a little, and Baekhyun’s heart jumped at the idea that Chanyeol was going to get up and leave him now. He felt the need to explain himself more, to make Chanyeol understand that it wasn't his fault, and words were coming out his mouth but it was all a jumbled mess. 

"I didn't do anything," he defended himself, "I only took his body. I didn't get to choose which body I wanted, I just got it, and I didn't know about you at all, I only realised I knew you the first time I bumped into you. You're wired into his brain, which was why I didn't want to hurt you with this. I kept pushing you away because I know Jaehyun will never be back, he really won't, and I wanted to save you the heartache, but-"

Baekhyun's ranting was stopped when a loud sound interrupted the mess in his mind, and when he stopped he slowly became aware of the stinging feeling in his cheek and the raised hand that had made impact with it. It was as if the storm in Baekhyun’s head had subsided, the wind had disappeared and everything was clear around him.

Chanyeol was breathing heavily, his eyes were wide and tears were streaming down his face. He looked like everything around him had just come tumbling down, like he didn't know where he was and what the hell he was doing, unlike Baekhyun, which could explain the shock that washed over him as he himself realised too what had just happened. 

The boy’s hand started to tremble in the air before it dropped to his lap, and Baekhyun watched how Chanyeol entwined his fingers, maybe as a precaution so he couldn't do such a thing again. The air was tense between them, having everything to do with how he had just slapped Baekhyun, how he had smacked him in the face as if it was nothing, and although he looked like he hadn't meant for it to happen, it still had.

Darkness was curling in Baekhyun's toes, demanding to break free from its hiding spot, but Baekhyun closed his eyes as he tried to focus and repeat a mantra of, 'remember, he just lost his lover', to keep it at bay. It took everything he had to believe this wasn't Baekhyun he was upset with, but the loss of Jaehyun.

Chanyeol had been looking for his boyfriend for over a year, of course the sudden realisation that he'd have to give up the search was going to feel like the meaning of life he had been looking for wasn't actually what he had expected it to be. Baekhyun had taken away his one purpose in life with only a few words, and he could recognise how that must hurt. 

"I'm sorry," Baekhyun brought out first, before Chanyeol had a chance to speak up, and his words were clearly laced with pain when he said them. They made Chanyeol wake up from his daze, coming to as if he had gone through an out of body experience where he hadn’t been himself. The guy was shaking his head, his hands coming up to cover his face, where they stopped shaking as much. 

"No," Chanyeol spoke through his fingers, looking absolutely out of it, " _I'm_ sorry. I didn't- I shouldn't have- I don't understand-" he never finished a sentence, and as Baekhyun watched him he felt scared that Chanyeol would burst out in tears any second now. He had been the one to get slapped, yet he still worried for the boy in front of him.

"It's okay, I know it is a lot to take in all at once, I know how it hurts to lose someone you've been around for so long. I don't know what it's like to lose someone you love, but I can imagine. I get it if you want to hurt me for that, but it wasn't my fault." Baekhyun didn't understand how he was able to stay so calm, but something inside of him had changed. Like someone had flipped a switch and was now trying to get him to do damage control, and Baekhyun once again listened if really Jaehyun wasn't still there in the back of his mind orchestrating this all.

"I know he loved you, I can feel it everywhere," he tried to reassure Chanyeol, "If he hadn't cared then I wouldn't have recognised you. For the memory of someone to linger after the soul is gone, they need to have made a very strong impression." He wasn't lying, and he hoped Chanyeol would believe him. He hoped it would soothe, if only a little bit.

Chanyeol's eyes fell shut as he listened to Baekhyun talk and the hands on his face were a shield now more than anything. They prevented Baekhyun from seeing how the taller one was feeling, prevented him from seeing whether he was angry or sad. Only his eyes would give Baekhyun the answers he needed, but with those closed Baekhyun could do nothing but wait.

When Chanyeol spoke, minutes later, he still sounded as if the news had just reached his ears, as if he hadn't processed it at all, but something about Baekhyun's words had stood out between all others, and that was what Chanyeol decided to comment on.

"His- his soul?" The question could relate to many things, from wanting confirmation that souls were real to Jaehyun's soul in particular, but Baekhyun figured it was the latter. Besides, the answer would confirm both questions, anyway.

"Yes," he answered without having to think about it, "his soul. It's no longer in this body." Maybe he had spoken a little too soon, maybe he hadn’t really thought it through, because the second he had confirmed it, he knew there was no turning back now. Baekhyun knew this was where it got difficult, this was where he started on the road that would be a dead-end, because as expected, Chanyeol wanted to know one thing…

"How?" 

As he asked the question, Chanyeol sounded as if he already knew. He knew what Baekhyun would say, knew that to be gone forever, one had to die. It was almost as if he didn't want to accept that, and Baekhyun wished he didn't have to say it. If Chanyeol already knew, why was he asking? It was a cruel thing to do for both of them, but maybe it was the only thing that would make Chanyeol believe.  

Confirmation. He needed confirmation, and Baekhyun was the only one who could give it to him by now. He didn't like it, didn't want to be the one to say it, but he knew it was inevitable. He knew from the start that telling the truth would include telling Chanyeol about Jaehyun's death. There was no backing out now.

"He- he died, Chanyeol. Jaehyun died," Baekhyun admitted, speaking slowly and carefully, his eyes never leaving Chanyeol's face nor his hands, but Chanyeol didn't hit him like he did before. He didn't move whatsoever, apart from his eyes, which had reopened moments before, that slowly fluttered shut again. 

"He's dead," Baekhyun repeated, making sure Chanyeol was listening and that he wouldn’t reach a state of denial again, that his words would land, "he's gone now, and he's never coming back." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, what will Chanyeol's response be???


	10. Wasted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He didn’t touch Chanyeol, scared for the way he’d respond, but he might as well have because the second the boy took in those words his hands fell in his lap and his upper body fell forward as if he was going to pass out. The move was a calculated one, however, for Chanyeol’s forehead hit Baekhyun’s shoulder, where it stayed too.

~

 

Baekhyun had never felt a silence as cold as the one that surrounded him then and he had never felt anyone else’s pain as strong as he did with Chanyeol. The boy next to him hadn’t even opened his eyes, he hadn’t moved at all, yet his posture radiated so much agony. It emitted an incredible pain that made the boy’s shoulders shake against their will, no matter how much he tried to keep them composed.

It was as if Baekhyun was experiencing every emotion that flashed from time to time on Chanyeol’s otherwise carefully straightened face. He noticed the small twitches at the corners of Chanyeol’s mouth that betrayed how much he wanted to cry, the way his eyes moved behind closed lids as if he was chasing Jaehyun inside his mind and the way his hands kept clenching into fists before slowly unclenching again as he gave up on the anger again.

Baekhyun could imagine it was like Chanyeol’s house of cards had suddenly collapsed on him, one of its pillars being snatched away with just a few words, and now he was left in the dark trying to find his way out of the mess. Baekhyun wondered if that was smart, if seeing it all from outside its scattered pile would do him any good, but there was nothing he could change.

Chanyeol’s lower lip started trembling, his fingers pressed against his mouth a little firmer, as if that would help, and Baekhyun took pity on him. Because although the feeling of losing a lover wasn’t something Baekhyun had experienced, the way Chanyeol was breaking down wasn’t unfamiliar to him.

Watching the guy reminded him of the loss of a best friend, of being cast out of heaven, of his body tumbling down and down until he collided with the hard and painful ground with no wings to safely put him down.

As he listened to Chanyeol sniff, he remembered that pain, he remembered being all alone surrounded by demons with intentions that were anything but pure. A fallen angel, still so young and untouched, who wouldn’t want a piece of that? It had been tough, but it had made him stronger, and now luckily that pain was nothing but a distant memory of a time long gone.

It was only a memory, but it was a memory strong enough to make his heart break alongside Chanyeol’s. He didn’t want the boy to feel the way Baekhyun had once felt. He wanted Chanyeol to smile at him the way he had done before. He wanted him to laugh the way he had when he thought Baekhyun was joking about him being a fallen one. He wanted to kiss him and wipe away the tears, but he had no right to do such a thing. All he could was sit there and watch.

“I’m sorry,” he offered weakly, knowing that there was nothing else he could do to comfort the other apart from giving him his words. They were practically strangers, and although Baekhyun didn’t feel like an outsider with Chanyeol, there was a good chance Chanyeol felt that way with him. Especially now the truth was out and he knew that Jaehyun was truly gone.

But Chanyeol kept surprising him, it seemed, because the last thing Baekhyun expected was for the taller to open his eyes and look at him and yet that was what happened. Their eyes made contact instantly, and it was hard to look away even though he knew he should. Baekhyun could only hope that his sorrow and his empathy were visible in his own the way Chanyeol’s pain was clear in his.

They watched each other, no more words spoken, and Baekhyun kept his eyes on Chanyeol’s at all times even when the other started to take in all his facial features. He kept still as he let himself be watched, unsure what Chanyeol was trying to achieve but allowing him nonetheless. It was a bit more relaxed, a bit less intense this way, and although Baekhyun was dying to know what the boy in front of him was thinking, he didn’t ask because he didn’t want to break the quiet.

Their eyes met again, and Chanyeol appeared to be letting his guard down a little more, his hands lowered from his face slightly, and for a second Baekhyun wondered if maybe the worst was over. But then, then he could see the way Chanyeol’s eyes had started to well up, the brim filling with tears at a rapid speed, and on instinct Baekhyun reached out a hand and croaked out a quiet, “hey, it’s okay.”

He didn’t touch Chanyeol, scared for the way he’d respond, but he might as well have because the second the boy took in those words his hands fell in his lap and his upper body fell forward as if he was going to pass out. The move was a calculated one, however, for Chanyeol’s forehead hit Baekhyun’s shoulder, where it stayed too.

For a second Baekhyun was too much in shock to process anything else, but then he heard a soft whine close to his ear as Chanyeol finally let go. He let go, and when Baekhyun looked down he could see how the shaking of the guy’s body was starting to get worse. He knew it was a matter of time before the tears would fall, before they would soak his shirt, but Baekhyun didn’t care because all he felt was how there was another crack in his heart that, strangely enough, spread a warmth throughout him that made him move.

He moved slowly, allowing Chanyeol to push him away at all times if he wanted to, scooting his hips forwards as his arms came up to wrap around the boy next to him. The other let him, and instead of pushing him away, Chanyeol buried himself into Baekhyun a little more. His head turned in such a way that he was breathing rapid puffs of air against Baekhyun’s sweater-covered neck, right underneath his ear, and Baekhyun closed his eyes and held on.

It took a minute, maybe a bit more, but then he felt Chanyeol’s hands disappear from his lap as his arms slowly came up to curl around Baekhyun’s back. He was hugging Baekhyun back while his cries intensified. They became a little louder after every inhale of air, and Baekhyun could feel the way the boy’s body sagged against him tiredly while at the same time he was shaking violently. It was a heartbreaking thing to feel, and Baekhyun couldn’t help himself when he dropped a kiss to Chanyeol’s head.

The boy didn’t even notice it, he was that lost in his sadness, and Baekhyun could feel the way Chanyeol really let go now. All restraints he had held on to for so long were gone, as if he had undone the tie that had held him together and now he was coming apart, little bits of his heart scattering everywhere around him while he desperately tried to pick himself up again.

His hold on Baekhyun was tight, so tight it was almost difficult to breathe, but Baekhyun let it happen, because knew that although it wasn’t his fault, he still felt responsible for how Chanyeol dealt with this.

Part of him hated how he felt relief while right next to him Chanyeol was in this much pain, but it only meant that the boy believed him now. It meant that he believed Jaehyun was gone and would never come back, so at least Baekhyun had achieved one thing, no matter how devastating the outcome. And even though right now it felt like it was the biggest mistake he could have ever made, he knew it would get better soon.

And as predicted, eventually Chanyeol’s shoulders stopped shaking and he calmed down some, his hands still curled in Baekhyun’s shirt but his head now turned away. They were still close and Baekhyun was very aware of it, but neither one commented on it. Instead he found himself trying to interpret what was going on inside Chanyeol’s head without using words, which he didn’t have to do for long before the guy spoke up.

His voice was barely a whisper, so unsure and full of fear, as if he didn’t really want to ask this but he had to, “how? What happened?” It was a surprise to hear Chanyeol sounding so fragile. Up until that moment Baekhyun had only seen him as cocky and confident, unafraid of everything coming his way.

He had survived all of Baekhyun’s hurtful words, the attempts to blow him off, and he had stood his ground and faced him no matter what. Baekhyun admired him for that, which was why this came as a shock, the softness of his voice. He supposed it made sense, but it felt wrong, so out of place, and Baekhyun instantly knew that he didn’t want to make it worse.

Chanyeol was asking him what had happened to his boyfriend, why he wouldn’t ever get back to him. He was asking how Jaehyun had died, and it caused Baekhyun’s throat to swell up until it was difficult to swallow.

He knew what had happened, knew it was suicide for reasons unknown. The marks on his wrists were reminder enough of what had killed him, with the one in his neck an added present on top. He knew that Jaehyun hadn’t left a letter, no explanation whatsoever. So Baekhyun could tell him, he could tell Chanyeol it was suicide, but what good would that do him? He would only be left with more questions and more pain that wouldn’t solve anything whatsoever.

Baekhyun was tired of seeing him hurt, he was tired of being the one to hit him with blow after blow, and so he decided to do something he considered harmless at this point: he decided to lie. He took a slow breath, letting the oxygen fill his lungs and then he closed his eyes and dropped his nose to Chanyeol’s shoulder, “an accident. It was an accident. I think, I’m not sure, but I think he was gone the moment it happened. I don’t think-“ he paused, knowing he was definitely lying now, “I don’t think he suffered.”

He was certain that Jaehyun had suffered, he must have suffered if he had bled out slowly until the life had drained out of him. But Chanyeol didn’t have to know that. He didn’t have to get crushed by the knowledge that Jaehyun had left him on purpose, that he had left without leaving a message for Chanyeol, explaining him why he had done it. Baekhyun would save him from that heartache, from the confusion of it all.

“He loved you, I can tell he did,” Baekhyun went on, hoping to change the subject, “I hope that is just the tiniest bit of consolation even though I know that it will be difficult to see it that way now. I really wish I could give him back to you. I like this body, but I would give him back if it would change anything, but I can’t. I’m locked in here now, until the moment I die. I’m sorry I can’t give you what you wish for the most, but I swear I’ll try to help you deal with the grief.”

Chanyeol pulled back once Baekhyun had finished talking, and he wiped his nose with his eyes cast downwards. He hadn’t said anything so far, was still taking it all in, and for a second Baekhyun was scared that maybe Chanyeol would be able to call him out on his bullshit. Luckily though, he didn’t.

He nodded in the end, looking up at Baekhyun with bloodshot eyes and a red nose, a sight that made Baekhyun’s heart ache again. He looked like a drowned puppy, a sad drowned puppy, and Baekhyun was at a loss for what to do. He decided to go about it the mortal way, remembering how often heartbroken people showed up at the bar, and so he sighed and said, “let me get you another beer.”

With slightly wobbly legs Baekhyun got up to get another beer from the fridge, knowing maybe this wasn’t the smartest thing to do – getting a heartbroken puppy drunk – but it was the only thing he knew how to do.

After he closed the fridge he paused, looking back at Chanyeol briefly, and then he made up his mind and opened the fridge again to get another beer for himself as well. Screw that, he deserved a drink despite his being ill. He felt slightly better after that soup anyway, he could keep one drink down, he hoped.

“I really hope you won’t get sick now,” Baekhyun chuckled humourlessly as he held out the beer for Chanyeol to take, keeping his own close to his body so the boy couldn’t snatch it away if he saw. It didn’t matter, Chanyeol was too out of it to care. He didn’t even mention it, only let his eyes flit to the can for a moment before he set his own to his lips and threw back his head.

Baekhyun watched him chug the drink down in one go, which wasn’t really all that impressive, after all it was something he saw almost every day, but somehow seeing Chanyeol do it was surprising. It wasn’t what he had expected from the taller, who seemed so innocent and pure, but when it came to alcohol, it was clear that Chanyeol could take some.

Which became even more apparent when Chanyeol pushed himself up only to walk to Baekhyun’s kitchenette, where he dropped the empty can and opened the fridge to get himself his third beer of the night. Baekhyun didn’t stop him, his surprise keeping him from doing more than stare at the guy as he flopped down next to him once more.

Chanyeol went slower on this beer, taking only a sip before he put it down. With the back of his wrist he wiped his nose again, and although he was clearly still a mess, Baekhyun thought he looked pretty composed. It was as if he had quickly accepted the truth and had decided not to dwell on it too long. To let the pain in for a while and then decide no longer to acknowledge it. And that meant he was strong. Chanyeol had to be strong.

Baekhyun took a few tiny sips himself, felt his cheeks go hot the instant he downed them. He knew he wasn’t made for alcohol, wondered if it was a Jaehyun thing or a Baekhyun thing, but he figured it was mostly a mix of both. He could feel Chanyeol’s eyes on him as he drank, but he kept his own gaze on the ceiling as the beer went down his throat.

This time their silence wasn’t uncomfortable, it was just that both of them didn’t know what to say now the truth was out. Baekhyun found there was nothing he could say to clear the air and make it lighter without sounding like an inconsiderate dick, while Chanyeol was too overwhelmed to say anything either. They just sat there together, occasionally drinking their beer, until Chanyeol slurped his so loudly that Baekhyun choked on his own mouthful and then they were both laughing.

Beer came up through Baekhyun’s nose, burning and gross, but it was worth it because it made Chanyeol double over with his hands on his stomach, and he was laughing. They were laughing in this hollow situation and it was strange but entirely comforting at the same time. To hear the bright laughter next to him, to see Chanyeol move so much, it healed Baekhyun’s heart a little bit.

He worried if maybe it was a tad inappropriate to laugh after what they just talked about, and when Chanyeol looked up he could see that there were tears in his eyes again, but his laughter seemed genuine. He almost looked like a mad man, torn between two feelings at once, and Baekhyun kept a careful eye on him to make sure he wouldn’t take it too far.

When Chanyeol met his worried gaze his loud laughter slowly died down until it was nothing but a smile, and Baekhyun was surprised to hear the other break the silence. “You know,” he said, “one of the things I loved about Jaehyun so much was his ability to turn the most serious of things into something light, something easy. You do that too.”

Chanyeol’s eyes fell down again, breaking their contact, and his smile faded a little more as well, “it seems like you’re a good replacement. I guess I just hope, hope that you’ll do his body right.” His tone turned softer, more loving, “Jaehyun was a very careful person. He’d always say something like ‘my body is my temple’ or that sort of shit, which was why he’d watch his diet and did some stupid yoga stuff. I always thought it looked silly, now all I wish for is to walk into the room and find him in some sort of lotus pose on the floor, or something like that.”

Baekhyun listened silently as Chanyeol talked about his lover, and although for a moment the boy had been smiling again, it all faded away so easily now. Chanyeol apparently caught himself thinking something along the same lines, as if even through all he felt he still managed to think about Baekhyun’s feelings, which was insane. “I’m sorry,” he apologised, looked at Baekhyun like he meant it, “I didn’t mean to blurt this all out. I’m sure you’re not interested in any of that… but I just- this is really weird.”

Humming, Baekhyun put his can down before he made himself comfortable again, noticing how Chanyeol did the same. The alcohol had loosened him some, and he felt pleasantly rosy, perfectly fine even though the subject should have made him feel uneasy. “It’s okay. I get it, I know it’s weird. It was always difficult for me to get used to demons who suddenly changed their host bodies. One moment they look like one thing, the next they look totally different.”

It felt strange how easy it was to share such a thing with Chanyeol and it was funny how, just like Chanyeol, he felt like it was probably something the other boy could care less about. Whether that was true or not, Chanyeol still sat a little closer, turned his body towards Baekhyun more, and he sighed, “I don’t get how I’m still breathing right now.”

The words were a confession, and Baekhyun could understand exactly what he meant, but Chanyeol explained himself anyway. “First, I find out there is such a thing as angels and demons. Then…” he trailed off then, his eyebrows furrowing together as he thought back to their conversation, “then I find out that Jaehyun-“ he swallowed and decided to just skip it, “and now we’re here talking like none of that means anything at all.”

Baekhyun sucked his lower lip between his teeth and worried on it for a moment. He didn’t know what to reply to that, so he said nothing, and Chanyeol only stared at him while lost in thought again. In the same way Baekhyun felt how his cheeks were warm, Chanyeol’s had turned a soft pink as well, and he could tell how both of them were affected by the alcohol. It was only beer, but Baekhyun was sick and Chanyeol was emotionally unstable. It was doomed to turn into a mess at some point.

“There’s so many things I love about you,” Chanyeol said then, a sentence that made Baekhyun’s heart skip a beat until he realised that he wasn’t actually talking about Baekhyun. “The mole on your ear was my favourite, but I also love the one on your thumb, and especially the one…” Chanyeol moved in, his hand coming up, and instantly Baekhyun was alerted. He sat back slightly, but Chanyeol just kept going and going until his finger touched the corner of Baekhyun’s mouth.

“The one there, right above your upper lip. It’s so tiny, but it’s cute, just like you,” the guy was so close now that Baekhyun could count his eyelashes if his brain hadn’t turned into mush, “or, you know… your body, I mean.”

Baekhyun could feel his cheeks heat up more, and he realised with a startle that it was due to a blush this time, which was stupid because Chanyeol was only complimenting a body. A host body that should mean nothing to Baekhyun, one that Chanyeol adored because he had loved its previous owner. It should mean nothing, but it made Baekhyun warm all the way up to his ears, and he brought out a quiet sounding, “I guess I got lucky.”

Chanyeol nodded at that, looking very serious all of a sudden, “you did. I have never seen anyone as beautiful as you. I’ve tried so often to look for people more stunning, but no one, not even the most adored model, is a better definition of beauty than you, or…” Chanyeol kept frowning and then staring at him, and his finger was still softly grazing Baekhyun’s upper lip, “your body.”

He should know better than to let it get to him. He should have reminded himself of how this was dangerous. Their proximity, the fact that they had alcohol in their systems and that Chanyeol had just gone through one of the most difficult moments he’d ever have to face in his entire life. It was a recipe for disaster, but Baekhyun was too intoxicated by the taller’s voice, by his soft touching and the colour of his eyes. Baekhyun was lured right into his trap, and even if he could get out he wasn’t sure he’d want to.

Because this moment, with Chanyeol so close to him and talking about his body as if he was talking about Baekhyun, this was his first taste of love. The first taste of what it felt like to be adored and Baekhyun’s heart was floating somewhere outside his body, it had to because he couldn’t feel it anymore. All he felt was this soft fuzzy feeling, this tickling in his stomach that kind of made him want to throw up, but it was a good kind of feeling.

It was actually so good that Baekhyun understood why people thought it was addictive, why love was what people longed for. This was an angel’s heroine, its reason to breathe, and it made adrenaline pump through his veins. Experiencing it like this made Baekhyun wish he could fast forward to the moment where he’d have someone who would look at him like this for _him._  

Clearly Chanyeol wasn’t staring at Baekhyun, he was staring at whatever he hoped was left of Jaehyun, and Baekhyun really couldn’t blame him for it. It was his own fault that this was happening, if he had wanted it to stop he could have just stopped it, but he didn’t. He let Chanyeol stay this close to him, let Chanyeol’s fingers trace his face, and he let him move in even closer until he could feel the other’s breath against his lips.

There was a moment of doubt there, Baekhyun could see it in Chanyeol’s eyes the split second between the moment he stopped inching closer and the moment he finally closed the gap. It was barely a second, but it was there, the uncertainty in his eyes, and then it was just not, and Baekhyun felt warmth against his mouth.  

It took a moment for his brain to register it as Chanyeol’s lips that were now pressed against his, but when he did his body slowly relaxed and melted into it, almost as if on instinct. Baekhyun moved his head slightly for their lips to slot together better, to deepen it even though he really shouldn’t. This was all kinds of wrong, mostly because it would end badly for him and not for Chanyeol, but he couldn’t stop himself from taking what he wanted.

He couldn’t hold down the hand that came up to tangle in Chanyeol’s hair, couldn’t stop his tongue from swiping Chanyeol’s lower lip even though he really tried, and when Chanyeol made a sound in reply to his touches, Baekhyun felt his heart slam right back into his chest where it picked up its quick pitter-patter without faltering once. God, this was perfect.

It didn’t last nearly long enough. In his head only seconds had passed when in reality it was probably more like a minute, but then they broke apart almost simultaneously, as if they just knew. Their foreheads were still touching, their breathing close to being in sync, and it wasn’t until Baekhyun got to breathe in oxygen again that his mind cleared up enough and he realised just exactly what they had done. What they had both done to each other.

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry but I'm like going to keep hitting you with cliffhangers. If I don't then these chapters are just gonna go on forever


	11. Plant a Seed...

 

 

“You don’t kiss like him,” was the first thing Chanyeol said, which wasn’t at all what Baekhyun had expected him to say. He had expected an apology, or maybe for Chanyeol to run out of there to get away from what they had just done, but he didn’t. He just sat back, looking thoughtful, and Baekhyun sat frozen as he tried to process it all.

Eventually he fell back against his couch, his cheeks warm and probably a soft red colour by now, and he brought up a hand to cover them slightly, “well, that’s probably because I’m not him.” It felt like it was some unspoken rule not to mention the actual name, but to stick to ‘him’, because Baekhyun noticed how he himself didn’t dare say it.

“I know,” Chanyeol replied, sounding a little wistful, and Baekhyun didn’t get what he meant with that, but he was too nervous to ask. He felt giddy all the way to his toes, and it was the first time since he got this body that he actually thanked Jaehyun instead of cursed him. If it hadn’t been for him, and for Chanyeol of course, Baekhyun wouldn’t have experienced his first taste of love.

Baekhyun had kissed plenty of people, but more than ninety percent of those had been driven by lust. They had been meaningless, a leading up to something more where kisses weren’t necessary. He had shared his mouth with countless faces, had found it was nothing special, but with Chanyeol that was different. There was a kindness in the way he had pressed his lips to Baekhyun’s, something that screamed how much he cared, and although it hadn’t been meant for Baekhyun, he had still felt it.

He wondered what it would have been like to part his lips for him, or what his skin would taste like as he kissed a trail down Chanyeol’s chest, but those were dangerous thoughts to have and so Baekhyun shook his head to scatter those thoughts to the darker parts of his brain.

He leaned forward to get his beer, to drink the last two mouthfuls he had left of it, and as he held on to the empty can in his hands he looked at Chanyeol from the corner of his eyes. The boy was playing with his fingers, his previous smile gone again, and it was so strange because they had washed along with such a wave of emotions. That at least had been something Baekhyun had expected, but he hadn’t been able to predict in which direction the waves would pull them, and it had been a surprise that way nonetheless.

He was scared though, scared what would happen now that they had returned back to stable ground, their feet able to touch solid ground as the current kept pushing them back and forth in soft motions. Soon they would wash ashore. Soon the night would end and Chanyeol would go home, and then- “what do we do now?”

The words just blurted out, like his heart was pushing them off his tongue in order to get some clarity. He wanted to know what to expect. Whether that was them going their own way now, or them keeping in touch. He had to know, before Chanyeol walked out this door, if he would ever see him again.

The question caught the taller one off guard, Baekhyun could see it from the look on his face, as if he hadn’t really thought of this before. The boy tipped his head back and looked up while he hummed, taking a moment to think of it before he tilted his head in a way that would allow his gaze to drop to Baekhyun’s face.

Chanyeol appeared to be reading him, taking him in, and Baekhyun kind of felt out of it as he tried to cover up whatever emotions were visible on him. The taller’s own face wasn’t showing anything in that moment. It was blank, thoughtful, and the silence dragged on so long that Baekhyun wasn’t sure he’d get a reply at all.

“I want your phone number,” Chanyeol concluded then, all while nodding at himself, “yes. Your phone number. I want to know Baekhyun, but I can’t do that when all I see when I look at you-“ he didn’t have to finish for Baekhyun to understand. Right now he was still too much Jaehyun.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Baekhyun agreed, feeling himself smile because even if it was such a small thing, Chanyeol was still making an effort to get to know him, to get to know Baekhyun. “I guess it would be nice for me to talk to you without feeling what J- what he felt,” he caught himself just in time, and Chanyeol smiled fleetingly.

He moved in his seat and fished a phone out of his back pocket, handing it to Baekhyun casually. Baekhyun didn’t know why he felt like he had to make sure their hands didn’t touch when he took it, but he did. Chanyeol had already unlocked it for him, so Baekhyun quickly pressed some buttons to save his number under a new contact.

Once he was done he handed the phone back and Chanyeol stood up to put it back this time, “I think it’s best that I go now, anyway. I think waking up will make me feel hungover for more than one reason, and I’d rather not fall asleep here and have you deal with me in the morning. It’s been a rough night.” He was giving so many excuses when, really, he didn’t need one at all.

Baekhyun smiled at it and stood up, “alright. I’ll walk you to the door, though.” He waited for Chanyeol to start moving, and the boy’s longs limbs took a second to listen to what his mind was telling him to do. Baekhyun threw their empty beer cans in the trash while Chanyeol picked up his coat and shrugged it on, and it was funny to him how only now, minutes after the kiss and everything, only now was the moment the air became tense and awkward.

Chanyeol was the one to open the door, and he stayed ever as polite as he stepped into the hallway, thanking Baekhyun for breaking his heart. “You’ve been very hospitable, thank you for that. And thank you for telling me the truth. I- yeah, that’s it.” He turned to Baekhyun and forced a smile as he stuck his hands in his pockets, “I’ll text you. I promise.”

Leaning against his door like barely two hours earlier, Baekhyun nodded and watched the gorgeous man in front of him. Unlike when he first got here, where he had been all demanding and sure of himself, Chanyeol looked very small and self-conscious right now. It was an image that both made Baekhyun’s heart hurt while at the same time it showed him how underneath that mask was someone sensitive.

 “Okay,” Baekhyun told him, trying to reassure him with his voice, and maybe it helped a little because Chanyeol’s smile widened for a second. Then, with a short raise of his hand, a tiny wave and another smile, Chanyeol turned away from him and started walking to the stairs. His shoes hitting the steps were the only sound filling the air, and Baekhyun waited until he heard his feet hit the final step before silence fell over the hallway. Only then did he close the door.

The second he was alone he shut his eyes and let his forehead drop against his side of the front door. ‘What a night’, he thought. There had been heartache, for multiple reasons, and yet.

Yet it felt like a new beginning, like now the painful splinter that had been pricking his finger had finally been removed.

Baekhyun found himself rushing to his spot at the window, climbing in quickly and sitting down just in time to see Chanyeol’s tall form leave his apartment building and turn to the right. His hands were in his pockets and his neck was pulled in to hide from the cold behind the collar of his coat. He looked so small from up there, his shoulders slightly hunched, and Baekhyun wished he could keep him warm through the weather.

The first snow would fall soon, he could feel it. There was this tension in the air as if something was about the happen, and that along with the cold told him enough. Last year he had been out in the streets when he felt that way, had been in nothing but a too thin coat and worn down shoes as the first snow had decorated his skinny shouders. But Baekhyun felt like he was in a completely different place than last year.

This year he wouldn’t spend Christmas out in the cold, he wasn’t alone the way he had been then, and maybe once the first snow would fall he would have someone to go outside with to enjoy it. Someone for him to walk the park with, someone to take part in his snowball fights. Someone to warm his heart along with his hands.

He didn’t want to let himself dream too much, but he couldn’t help it. Wishful thinking or not, at least there was a tiny possibility of it happening now, unlike before where Baekhyun had actually been all alone. Chanyeol may not be his, they may never fall for each other like that, it would probably be strange that way, but he could dream. Dreaming never hurt anyone.

It wasn’t even five minutes after Chanyeol had disappeared from sight that Baekhyun felt his phone buzz next to him. The screen lit up his tiny nook, and Baekhyun took a deep breath before he picked it up and checked to see who the notification was from.

It was an unknown number, which meant that it could be anyone, but Baekhyun just knew. He knew, and only a few seconds later came the confirmation as well.

 

[Unknown]:

**Hi…**

**I think I may be a little drunk. I just almost walked myself into a lamp post.**    

[Baekhyun]:

**Hey. You’re an idiot. You better get home safe.**

[Chanyeol]:

**I will. Don’t worry about me.**

**It’s cold out. You should stay warm now you’re ill. Take some of that medicine that I brought before you go to bed.**

 

Baekhyun couldn’t help but smile as he read it, the worrying tone of the messages that told Baekhyun how he cared. It may not be because he was Baekhyun, only Baekhyun in Jaehyun’s body, but still.

 

[Baekhyun]:

**I will. Don’t worry about me.**

 

Baekhyun copied Chanyeol’s words and smiled at his own joke, waiting for another reply, but it didn’t come until ten minutes later.

 

[Chanyeol]:

**Tripped over my own feet. Maybe you should worry after all.**

[Baekhyun]:

**Fuck. Are you okay?**

[Chanyeol]:

**You curse?**

**I’m fine. Jeans with holes at the knees are hot right now anyway, right?**

[Baekhyun]:

**You don’t text like a drunk person.**

[Chanyeol]:

 **That’s ‘cause I am a god whose brain doesn’t get affected by alcohol. I’m only very clumsy when drunk. It’s my long limbs,** **honestly.**

**Wait… is there a god?**

               

Baekhyun snorted at the question and he could almost see the confused look that was likely on Chanyeol’s face as he reconsidered his own comment and asked the question in a very serious matter.

 

[Baekhyun]:

**Yes, there is, but it’s not at all what you think.**

**Does it matter?**

[Chanyeol]:

**Yes, because I’d like to think Jaehyun is in heaven now.**

 

Baekhyun fell silent at that, not sure what to say to that. He could be, but he could be anywhere in between heaven and hell. With Baekhyun there on earth he’d never be able to find out either, and maybe that was for the best.

 

[Baekhyun]:

**He could be, although heaven isn’t what you humans think of it either.**

**Please let me know when you get home safely. I’m staying up until you get there.**

[Chanyeol]:

**Go to bed, Baekhyun. I’ll be fine.**

[Baekhyun]:

**I got you drunk. I’m staying up.**

[Chanyeol]:

**So stubborn. God, you really are. Thinking the whole pushing me away thing would help.**

[Baekhyun]:

**You still don’t understand why I did it?**

[Chanyeol]:

**I do, but you shouldn’t have. You should have told me the night I first bumped into you.**

[Baekhyun]:

**What would it have changed?**

[Chanyeol]:

**I could have started getting my life back together like a week earlier. That’s a week of my life, which is a lot of time for humans in case you didn’t know.**

[Baekhyun]:

**I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you.**

[Chanyeol]:

**This pain was inevitable.**

**The loss I mean, not my grazed knees.**

 

It was such a stupid thing to say, to comment about his knees, but Baekhyun assumed it was an attempt to lighten the mood again. They had turned so serious so quickly, but Baekhyun figured that it would be like this for a while. After all it was a serious topic, the thing that tied them together, and so just like the pain was inevitable, so was them talking about it.

Baekhyun didn’t realise he had been lost in his thoughts until his phone buzzed again ten minutes later, and when he looked at his screen he saw the message he had been waiting for.

 

[Chanyeol]:

**I’m home. Goodnight, Baekhyun.**

**Let me know how you feel in the morning, okay?**

[Baekhyun]:

**Goodnight, Chanyeol. I hope your dreams are sweeter than this bitter reality.**

 

He sent the message as another apology, and there came no reply this time. Not that Baekhyun waited for one, because he got up as he typed, opening the curtain enough to slip out. He sent it when he got to the doorway to his bedroom, and right after he locked his screen he fell down on his bed. His body was aching, reminding him of how he was ill, and as a shiver ran down his spine he pulled up the covers around him very tightly.

Goodnight Chanyeol, may your heart find peace.

~

Baekhyun had decided to stay home another day, needing to get the virus out of his system, and he really wished he had more of Chanyeol’s soup because it had helped him feel so much better for a while, but alas, it was all gone.

When he woke up around eleven, he felt just as shitty as the day before, and he groaned as he reached over to get his phone from the bedside table.

He surprised himself by opening his chat with Chanyeol before even thinking about Minseok and work, and he quickly sent the guy a text stating how he was alive, but that was all that could be said. Chanyeol replied telling him the same thing as Minseok told him the day before, before he had sent Baekhyun home.

[Chanyeol]:

**Drink lots of water and sleep plenty. Like me and my hungover ass.**

**Just so you know, I’m not a wuss, I just haven’t had alcohol in a long time.**

[Baekhyun]:

**Sure. We should have a competition sometime. See if you’re really not a wuss.**

[Chanyeol]:

**Not fair, I’ve always lost those with Jaehyun, you’ll surely win.**

[Baekhyun]:

**You don’t know that. I’m Baekhyun after all. I might suck more than you.**

 

They kept texting each other over the course of the day, after Baekhyun finally called Minseok to tell him he wouldn’t be getting to work that day. Minseok didn’t seem bothered by his being ill, he dismissed it quite easily. Instead he had bothered Baekhyun about Chanyeol and what their meeting had been like, but Baekhyun had hung up stating his headache was killing him and that he would call later with a full report of it all.

Luckily, Minseok had let it slip, and true to his word Baekhyun had called after he knew Minseok had closed up the bar, having just woken up from another round of sleep. They called for nearly an hour in which Baekhyun told him everything, and Minseok listened and hummed at the right times.

He promised to be back at work the next day to make up for all the lost time and to talk about it in person, and Minseok sounded like he was glad to hear he was doing that much better than before. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Baekhyun, prepare for a long day cause I’m not letting you go that easily then. Right now you can hang up on me all you want, but tomorrow…”

Baekhyun only rolled his eyes and smiled, “yes, boss. As long as you pay for the food, I’ll share everything over some good kimchi fried rice and sesame chicken.”

~

It actually felt good to get back to work. Baekhyun dressed up, going all out for the first time in a while. He wore his favourite choker, a leather strap that matched the bracelet around his right wrist, along with a black shirt that had a slight silver sparkle in it. Badass and demonic, just the way he liked.

He lined his eyes with a black eye pencil and used a balm to make his lips appear fuller. He would so work it tonight, hoping to go home with plenty of earned tips that could make up for the losses on his paycheck. He didn’t like owing anyone, and if he could help it he would make sure Minseok wouldn’t pay him extra just so Baekhyun could get by.

His jeans hugged his curves, his thighs and his hips, and Baekhyun knew he looked good. He wondered whether Chanyeol thought the same, or if he thought this looked ridiculous on Jaehyun’s body. He would have sent a picture, but he was sure it was too soon for such a thing. They were sticking to texting for a reason, so they’d get to know each other beyond their faces, and this didn’t fit that.

Baekhyun walked to work, eyes automatically trailing to the spot where Chanyeol had been for days on end, and even though he knew he could reach the boy whenever now, it was still strange not to see him waiting there.

Glad to be inside the warmth of the bar, Baekhyun took off his coat and put all his belongings in his pockets. After he rolled up his earphone he was about to put his phone away along with it when he saw the screen light up while the device buzzed in his hand. Without thinking twice he unlocked it and opened the message he had received, seeing it came from Chanyeol.

 

[Chanyeol]:

**What's your favourite colour?**

 

It was such a simple question and so out of the blue, that Baekhyun stared at it for a minute wondering if he hadn't imagined it or if maybe it had a different meaning if he looked at it a little differently. It didn't change though. It was still that: what's your favourite colour?

 

[Baekhyun]:

**Red.**

**Yours?**

[Chanyeol]:

**Why? Mine's blue.**

[Baekhyun]:

**Because red is both the colour of love and the colour of fire. It represents both parts of me, so red. Why blue?**

[Chanyeol]:

**It's the colour of the sky. No matter how I feel there is always one thing constant in life and that is how the sky is blue, no matter day or night.**

 

Baekhyun snorted at their exchange, how such a simple question had led to such detailed explanations. They could have just simply said ‘because I like it’, but both of them had actually put effort in explaining why that was the colour they chose. 

 

[Baekhyun]:

**Deep.**

[Chanyeol]:

**I know. Couldn't you tell I'm a very philosophical person from the way my first question for you is this deep?**

**You started it, though.**

 

Baekhyun couldn't help but laugh again at the way Chanyeol was clearly joking, and he sounded a little confused about it himself, even over text. He decided not to turn this into an argument and thought of a question of his own. What did he want to know?

 

[Baekhyun]:

**Fair enough.**

**Let me continue this philosophical journey:  are you a dog or a cat person?**

[Chanyeol]:

**How is that deep? A dog person.**

**I actually have a dog.**

[Baekhyun]:

**In the city? Wow.**

**It is, because it says a lot about your personality whether you're a dog or a cat person.**

[Chanyeol]:

**Which are you?**

[Baekhyun]:

**A dog person, of course.**

[Chanyeol]:

**Hah, of course.**

**What's your favourite flower?**

 

Like before, Chanyeol hit him with a question so insignificant, and Baekhyun couldn't help but throw his own words back at him for it.

 

[Baekhyun]:

**You're asking me how my question is deep and then you throw this at me?**

**Carnations, because they look like an explosion of something coloured.**

[Chanyeol]:

**It's deep. I need to know in case I ever have to buy you flowers.**

**Mine are daffodils, because they're as bright as the sun.**

 

Baekhyun's heart shouldn't skip the way it did. He shouldn't be thinking about Chanyeol showing up to a date with a single pink carnation in hand, because that was a dark place in his mind where he wasn't willing to go yet. And Chanyeol, with his grieving heart, should not be thinking about buying him flowers. 

No matter how much Baekhyun wanted to comment on it, he forced himself not to. He changed the subject, focused on Chanyeol's own answer to not raise any suspicion of him doing so, and it worked.

 

[Baekhyun]:

**You have a thing with the sky, don't you?**

[Chanyeol]:

**Why wouldn't I? I don't like looking down.**

**Your turn.**

 

Pausing at that, Baekhyun tried to think of something else he wanted to know. Something deeper than dogs and cats, than flowers and the sky. A question that actually meant something. And before he could stop himself to think of the possible answers and how Jaehyun could be part of those, he typed out his question and sent it.

 

[Baekhyun]:

**What is your biggest fear?**

 

The moment he sent it he felt awful, knowing that it was actually very likely for Chanyeol to talk about losing Jaehyun. Suddenly Baekhyun felt like an asshole. Would Chanyeol say his worst fear had already become reality? Was Baekhyun being an dick by asking this? 

He had wanted to keep it light, hoping to get something stupid like 'spiders' as an answer, but of course the words he used went much deeper than that, and Chanyeol noticed it too.  

 

[Chanyeol]:

**Ah, now we're getting somewhere, huh? Did you ask this thinking about the loss I just went through?**

 

Baekhyun was actually about to type that he took it back, that Chanyeol didn’t have to answer that at all. He was already thinking of another question to ask, but Chanyeol was faster than him. 

 

[Chanyeol]:

**Sorry, that wasn't fair. My biggest fear wasn't losing Jaehyun.**

**My biggest fear is losing myself.**

 

Even though Chanyeol wasn't angry, or he didn't seem to be, Baekhyun still felt like apologising. So he did, before he asked on. Maybe he shouldn't have, or maybe it was exactly what he was supposed to do. The lines were so blurry between them that he didn't know the difference between right and wrong anymore. He could only do what felt right.

 

[Baekhyun]:

**I'm sorry if that was too much to soon, you could have refused to answer.**

**How can you lose yourself?**

 

It went quiet for so long that Baekhyun wondered if maybe Chanyeol had left, if maybe it had been one step too far after all, but then he saw the other boy typing a reply, the text balloon showing him dot after dot after dot...

"Baekhyun, you were supposed to start five minutes ago. Get your ass in here," Minseok yelled from his spot at the door, waking Baekhyun from his trance. He looked up from his screen to send Minseok a begging glance, "just one more minute, please. I promise." 

When Minseok rolled his eyes at him, mouth slightly open as he tried to think of a witty response, but Baekhyun already knew he had won and he quickly looked back at his screen to find the long explanation Chanyeol had sent him. 

 

[Chanyeol]:

**Through love. Love can blind you until you forget who you are on your own. You can lose yourself completely to someone else until the person that they return to you once it ends is nothing but a twisted version of who you used to be before you were with them. If you're not careful, you can lose everything you once liked about yourself and become someone entirely different.**

[Baekhyun]:

**Did that happen to you?**

[Chanyeol]:

**No, but it could have. And it could happen the next time I give my heart away.**

[Baekhyun]:

**Will you ever?**

 

Baekhyun closed his locker and got his apron while he waited for the text balloon to turn into a reply. It was such a risky question and Baekhyun was glad he had something to keep his hands occupied while he waited or else he was sure he would have taken it back right now. 

Chanyeol was typing though, and Baekhyun was dying to know the answer. 

 

[Chanyeol]:

 **I don't want to spend the rest of my life crying over him. I know he cared, I know it wasn't his fault and I know he'd want me to be happy. He was my first love but he will not be my only one.**  


Baekhyun stared at his screen while he took slow steps towards the door. His heart was in his throat right now, trying to jump out over the knowledge that there was a very real possibility that he could have Chanyeol. Chanyeol wasn't out of reach, the guy thought he would be able to love again, and that made him happy. 

It was strange, because Baekhyun had expected that what he felt inside was whatever was left of Jaehyun. If that were true though, this would have surely made him disappointed. Jaehyun would have most likely been upset that Chanyeol was talking about moving on so quickly, but Baekhyun felt like it was good. 

Chanyeol was strong. He had spent a year holding on to hope and now that that hope was gone, he sucked it up and focused on moving past it. To anyone else it could look like Chanyeol hadn't cared about Jaehyun, but Baekhyun knew that the boy had most likely started grieving his loss somewhere over the past year and the truth had only set him free to actually allow himself to move on, rather than pull him down in grief. 

He typed out another reply as he walked into the bar, ignoring Minseok's sound of protest, and only when he was done typing did he put his phone away. 

 

[Baekhyun]:

**I admire your strength in a time like this. The last time I lost someone dear to me I lost my wings.**

 

"Baekhyun, what the hell is up with you?" Minseok hissed at him, trying to keep his voice soft and the smile still on his face as he walked Baekhyun away from the customers. "It's fucking busy, and you know I tolerate a lot, but phones? Since when?" 

Baekhyun sighed and frowned at Minseok, "relax. It's Chanyeol, we were in the middle of a serious conversation and it would have been rude of me not to reply. I know about the phone rule, I won’t make a habit of it." 

Inside his pocket, his phone buzzed, and Baekhyun wished he could resist the want to read the reply he got, but he couldn’t. He was too weak, and his fingers easily slipped into his pocket to take out his phone, "I promise I'll put it away in a minute. I'm not a dick, I won't be on it all night, but please, we're on thin ice right now."

 

[Chanyeol]:

**I'm sorry.**

[Baekhyun]:

**Don't be, you had nothing to do with it.**

[Chanyeol]:

**Doesn't matter. I still hope you came to like the ‘you without wings’, Baekhyun.**

 

"You're still in touch?" Minseok asked in surprise, "I thought he would have run off the minute he found out the truth." Baekhyun felt a little annoyed at that, because it was as if Minseok was saying he wasn't worth sticking around for, which he knew was just him being dramatic, but still. It made him act like a little diva.

"Well he did not, we have been texting all day yesterday when I was ill and now right before I came in he texted me again. I'll tell him you're being a bitch so he knows I'll have to go." 

 

[Baekhyun]:

**I did.**

**I do.**

**I'm at work and Minseok is being bitchy. I should go.**

[Chanyeol]:

**Good.**

**Tell him hi.**

**Oh, and Baekhyun, what's your favourite ice cream flavour?**

 

"He says hi," Baekhyun told his boss, who stared at him with a confused face then. He looked a little torn between keeping his boss face on or cutting Baekhyun some slack, and in the end he sighed and said, "tell him hi back, and then put your fucking phone away or I'm having Kyungsoo kick your ass." 

"Yes boss," Baekhyun saluted him before he went back to typing a final reply, leaving a sort of promise for them to continue their conversation later.

 

[Baekhyun]:

**He says hi back, but is also ordering me to put my phone away.**

**Very berry strawberry.**

**Bye for now.**

[Chanyeol]:

**Hah...Guess we both like our ice cream sweet. Mine's Cotton Candy Wonderland.**

**Bye.**

~

When Baekhyun got home, tired and his body a little painful again, he saw something hanging on his doorhandle as he climbed the last few steps leading to his floor. He frowned, pausing for a second as he tried to think of whatever it could be and whoever could have left it for him. Who would leave what looked like a plastic bag at someone’s door? And what the hell could be inside it? Baekhyun was at a loss.

His brain was too tired however, to really speculate and reach the point where he could be worrying about someone leaving a bomb at his door, which was why Baekhyun just shrugged and took the last few steps he had to take to reach his door. 

He didn't waste any more time, taking a hold of the plastic bag with both hands as he untied it from the handle, and when he looked inside, curious but also a little cautious, the first thing he saw was a note. He fished it out and read what it said, a smile slowly creeping onto his face as he did.

 

 _'I hope you are smiling. I want to see you but I know that wouldn't be smart._  
_So, while I'm at home eating a tub of your favourite ice cream, you can eat mine._  
_(But in case you hate it, there's a tiny tub of Very Berry Strawberry in there as well.’_

 

Baekhyun's smile grew bigger the further he read, and when he looked down he saw the large size tub of Chanyeol's favourite flavour, Cotton Candy Wonderland, inside along with a smaller tub of his own. He hoped the icecream hadn’t melted in the same way his heart was melting in his chest right now.

He opened his front door in a rush and he all but fell inside, dragging the bag to his kitchenette after kicking the door shut behind him. He set it down on the counter and first took off his coat, after which he got out his phone and walked back to his present.

The ice cream was no longer as hard as it would have been if he had just gotten it from the freezer, but it wasn’t too soft either. It was perfect, and with a bright grin Baekhyun got a spoon from the drawer before he took the tub of Cotton Candy Wonderland and brought it with him to his nook.

After he settled himself in the windowsill, blanket around his knees to keep himself from getting chilly, he took a spoonful of ice cream and stuck it in his mouth. His eyes fell shut as he let the taste of it overflow his senses, and all he could think of was how Chanyeol was somewhere else in Seoul, enjoying the taste of strawberry.


	12. Karaoke Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Although karaoke often made him feel embarrassed, he still enjoyed it, and he knew he was going to have fun tonight. Having sent Chanyeol a message that he would be out for the night and having received a reply telling him how the other would be out as well, he knew he didn’t have to worry about his phone buzzing with messages, and so he sat back in his chair and stretched his legs as Minseok sang a song from some girl group.

 

It was early December, a week after he met with Chanyeol, that Minseok and Kyungsoo took him out to a karaoke bar. It wasn’t often that Minseok handed his job over to someone else, for the bar was his baby and his pride, but once in a while he needed a night to himself like any other.

Sometimes that meant he’d spend that time with Kyungsoo, while Baekhyun manned the bar with Jongin, but other times they’d hang out together. And with the added help of the new girl, tonight was a night off for both Minseok and him.

His friend had been in a karaoke mood, something both Baekhyun and Kyungsoo found hilarious because Minseok didn’t really seem like the type to enjoy karaoke. However, karaoke was one of Minseok’s guilty pleasures, which was why they were spending the night doing just that. He’d get very competitive, as if he actually had to be when both Kyungsoo and him didn’t really care for it a lot.

Luckily for them, Minseok actually didn’t sound too bad, otherwise the night would have been torturous.

Out of the three of them, Kyungsoo was the one who enjoyed it the least and he always needed a few drinks in his system before he would dare pick up a microphone and sing. He had a beautiful, velvety voice though, one that Baekhyun envied even if he didn’t sound too bad himself. He knew he should feel blessed to have such a high range, because truthfully, Baekhyun loved singing, and if he had sounded like a strangled cat while doing it would have sucked.

He had been singing ever since he was young, back when he had been an angel with a voice as pure as gold, and he still did. The angelic hymns had made place for other songs though, human songs that could be a little weird at times, but he liked them. He liked the upbeat of them, the way you could dance to songs without caring about the lines while others could bring tears to your eyes.

Although karaoke often made him feel embarrassed, he still enjoyed it, and he knew he was going to have fun tonight. Having sent Chanyeol a message that he would be out for the night and having received a reply telling him how the other would be out as well, he knew he didn’t have to worry about his phone buzzing with messages, and so he sat back in his chair and stretched his legs as Minseok sang a song from some girl group.

Kyungsoo shuffled closer to him, letting Minseok lose himself in the music, and although he kept his eyes on his boyfriend, his words were directed towards Baekhyun when he spoke. “So, how are things with Chanyeol?” he asked, no bite or smugness to his words as Baekhyun would have expected from the other. After all, Kyungsoo had his reasons to act all smug, but there was nothing but genuine curiousity in his voice, or so it seemed.

Baekhyun shrugged in reply, heaving a sigh, “good, I guess, considering the circumstances. We’re texting a lot, and he bought me ice cream, but I haven’t seen him since that night.” He was a little sad he hadn’t, even though he could understand why Chanyeol was staying away. “I don’t really know how he feels, texts don’t show that kind of thing.”

Kyungsoo hummed just as Minseok hit a high note, one hand balled into a fist as he held it up in the air. “It’s a good thing, though, that he stayed in touch. I can imagine it is difficult to separate you and your host and he’s trying, that should say something,” the other explained, making a very valid point. The thing was that Baekhyun didn’t know what that ‘something’ was supposed to tell him.

“Sure. I’ll just have to see where it leads us,” Baekhyun nodded before he took his glass and took a sip, deciding not to let Kyungsoo’s question dampen his mood. He was out to have fun, not to worry about his relationship with Chanyeol. He got to do that every other moment of every other day, with him reading into every text message looking for any underlying meanings and waiting for his phone to buzz again. Right now he just wanted to forget, which was exactly why he got up, surprising Minseok with his sudden appearance as he popped up next to his friend.

Without a word Baekhyun took the second microphone and selected a song to be played next, waiting for Minseok to finish his song with a confused tone marring his sound. Once he had finished he looked at Baekhyun with that same expression but then etched on his face, “you’re not even tipsy yet, what are you doing?”

Baekhyun chuckled, “your boyfriend is being annoying,” he explained before he took his spot in front of the screen. Even though he knew the lyrics of this song very well, he still kept his eyes on it, not wanting to see his friends’ faces behind him.

Minseok had been right, he wasn’t even tipsy yet, which was exactly why he made sure not to look at them. It was easier to sing when you were a little drunk, because then he had a reason to sound a little off, but now the expectations were higher. Or, so were his at least.

As he sang, Baekhyun noticed how he sounded a little rough, and he paused for just a second to clear his throat and force himself to relax. Shaking his shoulders, he closed his eyes and let the world around him fade into darkness. It didn’t take much for him to lose himself in the lyrics, and his mind dreamed up a picture of Chanyeol’s smiling face as they resonated so clearly.

_My heart melts at your smile_

_When our eyes meet, my heart pounds_

He could see that dazzling smile, remembered the few brief times he’d seen it on the taller boy’s face. How handsome he was, how sweet and mysterious. There were layers to Chanyeol that Baekhyun hadn’t even touched yet, but he wanted to. He wanted to be the person that was allowed to do such things, but right now he was stuck in a place between having everything and having nothing at all.

Maybe he would never get to be the one, maybe he would never be the subject of Chanyeol’s thoughts the way he was of Baekhyun’s. Maybe he would never be able to compete with Jaehyun whatsoever, but he hoped. He really hoped that their texting made things easier, that it made Chanyeol want to get to know _him_. Baekhyun.  All he asked for was to keep him around, to have Chanyeol in his life in the way he couldn’t keep-

Before he knew it the song was over, and Baekhyun had been so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t realise it until he heard an audience giving him a round of applause behind him. It pulled him right back down to earth and he turned around ready to snap at Minseok and Kyungsoo, only to find that the ones clapping weren’t Minseok and Kyungsoo, they were Minseok and Chanyeol.

Kyungsoo sat next to Minseok, arms crossed and finally, fucking finally smiling that smug smile, the way Baekhyun had expected him to be earlier. Instead he had saved it for now, for the surprised look on Baekhyun’s face as he took in the boy next to Minseok. Chanyeol.

Chanyeol was smiling that smile he had seen behind his eyelids only a minute before, looking dazzling in a cream coloured sweater with a velvet, teal-coloured bomberjack on top. His hair looked nice, a little ruffled but not too much, and it all made his smile look that more radiant. He was absolutely beautiful and Baekhyun felt his heart skip a beat before it started jumping up and down in his chest.

The moment seemed to drag on forever, because once Baekhyun locked eyes with him he felt everything slow down. He recognised that look, he knew exactly what it was, but it couldn’t be reserved for him. It couldn’t be, because that was love that made Chanyeol’s eyes shine so brightly, and he couldn’t possibly love Baekhyun.

Realising his thoughts and the silence that suddenly hung in the air, Baekhyun snapped out of it once again. He brought up his hands to his face to hide his burning cheeks, the microphone still in hand, “awae, what are you doing?” he whined, trying to look away from Chanyeol to Minseok and Kyungsoo.

His boss had his head on Kyungsoo’s shoulder and he was smiling as if he was just so self-satisfied to see this happening. He commented slightly off-handly, as if it was no big deal whatsoever, “us? We’re only applauding you for your amazing and intense performance. Why?”

Baekhyun turned away to put the microphone down, giving himself a moment to let the blush fade away before he straightened and walked over to them without showing how nervous he was. Because Chanyeol was here, only minutes after Kyungsoo had asked about him, and he had heard Baekhyun sing too.

“Chanyeol,” he acknowledged his presence, his voice soft, as he sat down next to the guy. He tried to avoid eye contact at all costs, for now at least, and so he focused on the stray fiber in his ripped jeans, “what are you doing here? Couldn’t have warned me before giving me a heartattack?” the laugh he let out sounded a little forced and he could hear Kyungsoo snort, but Baekhyun fought the urge to flip him off.

“I was invited,” Chanyeol replied, “and I thought about it for a few days, whether it was smart or not, but then I decided I wanted to see you.” The taller’s voice was soft, as if the words were reserved just for him, and Baekhyun couldn’t hold back the smile now. If he had thought about it for days then this was okay, right? He hadn’t made the decision in a rush, he had considered going and not going and had made a thought through decision.

“Or would you rather have me leave again?” Chanyeol asked next, adding it because Baekhyun hadn’t replied at all yet, but as soon as the question left his mouth Baekhyun whipped his head in his direction and started shaking it fervently.

“No, no that’s not it. It’s nice seeing you,” Baekhyun took him in again, looking for signs of how Chanyeol was hiding his true self behind a mask, but he couldn’t find any, “you look good.” He did. Chanyeol looked fine, no dark circles underneath his eyes, no pain in his perfect brown eyes. He looked like Baekhyun hadn’t turned his world upside down a week prior to this night.

“Thanks, you do too. Very… dark,” Chanyeol let his eyes roam over Baekhyun’s outfit, judging the fact that most of it was black. Except for the dark grey shirt underneath his leather jacket, his outfit was completely black. He liked it like that, but he figured maybe Jaehyun had been different.

“Yeah,” Baekhyun nodded and smiled, an honest one this time, “I like black, that shouldn’t really come as a surprise.”

Smiling with Chanyeol, sitting with him and just talking like that, it made Baekhyun all but forget the other two people right across from them. He knew they were going to bother him about being like this later on, when they’d be alone again, but for now they let him be.

“Sorry you had to hear that,” Baekhyun excused himself, pointing at the karaoke screen before he let the hand move to the back of his neck, which he rubbed a little awkwardly, “I’ve had better days. But I’m sure you know about that.” He didn’t know why he said the last part, maybe to make himself sound less stupid, but he quickly realised it did completely the opposite of that.

“Not really,” Chanyeol told him, “I haven’t really-“ he paused then, brows knitting together as he seemed to contemplate whether to utter his response or not. “Jaehyun hated singing. I’d hear him hum from time to time, but never out loud the way you did. You have a lovely voice,” Chanyeol explained then, sounding very genuine and not upset about it at all.

He smiled at Baekhyun reassuringly, as if it was okay to have asked him that, and so Baekhyun smiled back. It went quiet then, if only for a little bit, because of course Minseok wasn’t going to let the mood die down. He jumped up in his seat, turning to Chanyeol and begging him, “won’t you sing a little bit then?”

The question made Chanyeol laugh out loud, his head thrown back with his neck on display, and Baekhyun’s eyes trailed down without him noticing, until Chanyeol straightened again, “me?! No way, no way. I can’t. I sound awful.” He used his hands to make this point clear, as if waving them in front of him would make Minseok back off.

He was about to see the bossy side of his friend, the one that was very persuasive, and Baekhyun leaned in for a moment to whisper, “wrong answer. Prepare to be bitched at.” And as predicted, Minseok sat himself up, his arms dropping to his side as he looked at Chanyeol incredulously, “Nu-uh no way. Everyone here sings, whether you sound like an actual angel, like my dear Kyungsoo, or like an average church choir boy like me.”

“You are not an average church choir boy,” Kyungsoo budged in, voicing himself for the first time since Chanyeol had appeared, “stop cutting yourself short.” Minseok waved it off though, even if his cheeks turned a slightly darker shade of red, making a point of stating how this wasn’t about him but about Chanyeol.

“Point is that if you don’t sing, you’re not welcome at this table,” Minseok uttered, after which a silence fell around them. The only noise they could hear was the karaoke from the other tables, which sounded a little dull, but apart from that no one spoke for a full ten seconds. Because that was when Chanyeol pushed himself up from his chair, and Baekhyun panicked.

He reached out, fingers curling around Chanyeol’s wrist as the boy moved, successfully stopping him from moving any further, “it’s okay. Minseok is only joking, you can stay,” he spoke while sending said friend a dangerous glare. He held on to Chanyeol tightly, scared that if he didn’t the other would shake him off, but that wasn’t what happened.

“I wasn’t going to leave,” Chanyeol answered as he looked down at Baekhyun, “I was actually going to get a microphone.” It wasn’t what Baekhyun had expected to hear, and he sat there at a loss for words for a second. He knew it was okay to let go of Chanyeol now, but his hand was still there, fingers pressing into the pulse point of Chanyeol’s wrist.

His focus shifted as he felt the steady heartbeat there, the way it beat so fast, and that was how he missed that Chanyeol was tugging his arm up, until Baekhyun had stood up along with him. Chanyeol watched him with an amused smile, the way Baekhyun’s mouth hung open lost in thought, and he tipped his head to the side and asked, “are you joining me?”

Baekhyun shook his head to compose himself and he returned the smile a little awkwardly, definitely not feeling intimidated by the thought of singing with Chanyeol. What else could happen next to Baekhyun fucking up, having a thousand possible ways to make a fool of himself?

Well, there was clearly one even bigger danger to this all: he could fall in love even more than he already was. It really didn’t matter if Chanyeol was a good or a bad singer anyway. If he was a bad singer then Baekhyun would think he was cute and if he was a good singer it would only make him a thousand times more attractive.

But then again it didn’t matter either whether Baekhyun sang along or not, because he’d be hearing Chanyeol’s voice either way. So if singing along made Chanyeol feel slightly more comfortable then he would, of course he would. “Uh,” he stuttered as Chanyeol handed him one of the microphones, “sure?”

The taller one didn’t pay any attention to him after Baekhyun took the microphone, he only turned back to the screen to pick a song, and so Baekhyun had a moment to spare in which he looked back at Minseok and gave him the middle finger. Minseok stuck out his tongue, obviously not affected at all by the threat, and leaned into Kyungsoo’s side a little more.

“Alright,” Baekhyun heard Chanyeol say, “I hope you know this one. I noticed you can sing quite high, so you take the female lead and I’ll take the male, okay? I’ve changed the pitch a little so it should be fine.”

Baekhyun stared at the screen, saw the title of the song was ‘stay with me’, and when the first notes filled the area he realised he knew the song. He knew the song, but only half of the lyrics, which meant he had to pay attention, and as he read the first few lines he felt his heart drop already.

Oh no, it was a very fitting song.

Baekhyun started, his voice needing a moment to find the right tone and then he held it, no clear emotion dripping through the words as he sang them. Chanyeol’s eyes were on him, he could feel the burning into him, and it left an itching feeling under his skin, as if something was crawling underneath as it was trying to get out.

 _If this is a dream, please let me wake up_  
_Are you really my destiny_  
 _Falling you_

He finished his bit, anticipation having grown the closer he got to Chanyeol’s lines, and this time it was his turn to look at the one next to him. Turning somewhat, he let his eyes fall on Chanyeol’s face, on the boy’s closed eyes and the microphone close to his mouth right before the first words fell from his lips.

 _Are you the line of my fate_  
_Are you the one I’ve been waiting for?_  
 _Why is my heart sinking?_

_Stay with me_   
_Are you living deep inside my heart_   
_Stay with me_   
_The truth hidden in me_

Chanyeol’s voice was low, lower than Baekhyun’s, but smooth and velvety, perfect. He looked so soft, like a dream, as he sang about love, and Baekhyun wondered who he was thinking of. Was he thinking of Jaehyun or Baekhyun? Was this meant to be significant or was Baekhyun reading into this? It made him frustrated that he didn’t know, and so he poured it into the next part, almost making it a question.

And Chanyeol answered. For a second Baekhyun felt like he got his answer, for a second, as Chanyeol went on, he felt like the taller one was telling him loud and clear that he was confused. That just like the person in this song, he felt torn up and unsure of what his heart was telling him.

 _I’m still watching over you_  
_from far away_  
 _Why am I being like this?_

But then Chanyeol started rapping and whatever true emotion had been in his voice seeped away as he focused on his lines. It sounded strong, it was impressive too, Baekhyun knew all of that, but he couldn’t help how he wanted Chanyeol to stop. He wanted to go back, back to where he felt like he wasn’t in this alone, back to where Chanyeol had given him hope.

 _Different from the moment I first saw you_  
_This time of fate is passing slowly_  
 _My heart was heading towards you_  
 _My heart was racing again_

_The faint light was turned off_   
_But my eyes are lighting up again because of you_   
_Feels like I’ve loved you from a long time ago_   
_Feels like I’m being pulled by something_

No matter the words, no matter how much they could tell him, Baekhyun wanted to hear it. He wanted to feel it in his body that Chanyeol meant them as more than words, that this was a secret message, but maybe he was just losing it.

This was why they only texted, because it was too risky to be around each other in person. Baekhyun was reading into it back then in his apartment and he was reading into it now, here in this stupid karaoke bar. His heart was slamming against his ribs wishing for something that he couldn’t really make sense of, and he didn’t want to believe those feelings were him.

It was so easy to give in like this, but he shouldn’t. If he really wanted to, he could just take what his heart desired. That’s what any demon would do, to take what he wanted even if the person in question didn’t want the same thing at all. A demon would take their shot even it if meant they would only get to have it once. Baekhyun wished he could be a bit more like a demon when it came to love, but his heart was too much like an angel’s for him to feel like it was okay to do such a thing.

And with Chanyeol he didn’t want to ruin things. He had done that too often already by pushing him away so much, and he wasn’t going to let the boy run out again this time. So whatever he wanted, if Chanyeol didn’t want it, then Baekhyun didn’t either. And Baekhyun wasn’t going to risk this all for one wanton kiss or a single fuck before Chanyeol would inevitably run out on him.

The taller had given him a chance to show his true self, he couldn’t fuck it up by acting on feelings he wasn’t sure of. Besides, it was probably still too soon for Chanyeol to be moving on, and Baekhyun had to respect that. He would respect that no matter how hard his heart was slamming against his ribcage right now.

When they finished the song together, Chanyeol smiled at him so brightly as Kyungsoo and Minseok burst into a rather loud applause, although most of that was due to Minseok’s clapping. Kyungsoo looked impressed, but not in the same way a Minseok was, with his eyes shining as if he had just seen something incredible happen.

Baekhyun thought it was a tad exaggerated, but when Minseok burst out with a, “my god, your voices fit each other so well!” he realised that Minseok wasn’t _that_ impressed with Chanyeol’s singing, but that his smile was directed at something else, because Minseok was watching them as if his dream fairytale idea of them was actually coming true, and Baekhyun cocked an eyebrow at that.

“Kyungsoo, babe, take Chanyeol and go get us drinks. You know our order,” Minseok pushed at Kyungsoo’s shoulder, trying to get him out of the booth just as Baekhyun was about to slide in again. Chanyeol, who had stood behind him, nodded like the obedient puppy he was, but Kyungsoo however, sighed, knowing fully well what Minseok had planned. Yet he didn’t stay, he only shot Baekhyun an apologetic glance before he got up. Yeah, he knew what Baekhyun was about to get into.

There were about three seconds of silence, until the boys had disappeared from view, before Minseok leaned over the table and hissed at a way too loud volume, “you totally have the hots for him!” He may as well not have tried to keep his voice down, although, if he hadn’t then it would probably have ended up being yelled across the room.

Baekhyun folded his hands in his lap, trying to stay calm as he argued his friend’s comment with a fairly predictable, “no I’m not.” Neither of them was actually fazed by his reaction, knowing that even though Minseok was right, Baekhyun would never admit it straight away.

Minseok gave him his ‘don’t fucking bullshit me’ face, which would clearly result in a whole argument that they didn’t have the time for, and so Baekhyun rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth before he added a quiet, “but even if I was, why would it matter? We are nothing and I can’t make a move ayway.”

“Hey, what’s with that sour face now, eh?” Minseok looked rather annoyed by the pout that had come along with the words, and he crossed his arms on the table and leaned a little closer, “what do you plan to do then? You go through all that trouble to find him, I even have to help you out with it, and then you just, what? Do nothing?”

Baekhyun dropped his head on his hands and looked at Minseok earnestly, “it’s really not that easy Minseok. If I had had any other body then sure, I would have swooped in right away, but I don’t. I look like his fucking ex, now don’t tell me you’d be okay with someone else in Kyungsoo’s body. Honestly, I’m happy enough he doesn’t actually hate me and is making an effort to get to know me. For now that is more than I could have asked for.”

Minseok sighed, but he gave up defeat, clearly realising that Baekhyun had a point. It was clear he didn’t like to admit it, because he really wanted his made up fairytale to work out, and although Baekhyun secretly wished for that to happen as well, he couldn’t make any mistakes at this point in time.

“Now, some things can’t be rushed. In fairytales, it takes years before Cinderella gets a chance to shine at the ball and meet the prince. And besides, who says these thoughts and feelings are mine? I’m still trying to figure out if it’s not just because-“ Baekhyun stopped his words when Chanyeol slid into the booth next to him, setting down a large pint of beer in front of him.

“Hey,” the guy said as their shoulders bumped, and for a second this strange awkwardness lingered around all of them, but then Kyungsoo sat down and took Minseok’s hand to get him to relax, and the mood changed slightly.

Chanyeol cleared his throat and asked Baekhyun’s boss how long they had been dating and how they had met, which helped Minseok perk up again. It wasn’t really a surprise to hear Chanyeol asking about Baekhyun occasionally as well, but Baekhyun himself sat without participating in the conversation. He sat there only listening to his friends while drinking his beer.

It was better than he had expected, Chanyeol appeared to fit into their little group quite well, and that was a relief in itself. The night could have been a total flop if he hadn’t, but there was never a moment where the conversation died after that, nor was there ever a moment where anyone’s glass was empty.

By the time Kyungsoo noticed how Minseok’s eyes were starting to droop, Baekhyun felt that same rosy feeling he had felt the night he had told Chanyeol the truth. Alcohol wasn’t really his forte, he knew that much, but yet he had kept on drinking.

“I think it’s time I take my boyfriend home before he really falls asleep on me here,” Kyungsoo murmured as Minseok planted his cheek against his boyfriend’s shoulder quite heavily. He actually looked like he was about to fall asleep, and Baekhyun chuckled at that before he turned his gaze to Chanyeol, who was smiling down at the table as if lost in thought.

“Alright, let’s finish our drinks and all get our coats,” Baekhyun suggested before he set his glass to his lips and downed the last of his third pint of beer. It wasn’t much, but in his defense these were large glasses. He had been to the bathroom thrice already, it was that bad.

“Okay,” Chanyeol said from next to him, copying Baekhyun’s move before getting up and holding out a hand for Baekhyun to take. For a second Baekhyun stared at it, confused as to why Chanyeol was offering, but then the taller guy cocked an eyebrow and Baekhyun realised he was overthinking it again.

The hand enclosed around his own and tugged, helping him slide out of the booth a little better in his slightly disoriented state. It made him actually thankful to have had a hold on it, even though the second he was standing the hand let go of him just as quickly.

Baekhyun decided not to let it hurt him, though, and he forced a smile that he directed to his best friends, “ready? Let’s get going.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what do we expect from chapter 13??? :----) Leave me your theories!!


	13. First Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So," Chanyeol spoke from beside him, making Baekhyun look up at him, "would you like to come back to my place for another drink? I mean- like, a non-alcoholic one. You could meet my dog?" He looked a little flushed, cheeks red as he tucked his chin into his scarf, as if he was scared that Baekhyun would say no and was hiding himself from the rejection.

~

 

After saying goodbye to Minseok and Kyungsoo, who walked off hand in hand with Minseok leaning into his boyfriend's side, Baekhyun and Chanyeol were left by themselves. Baekhyun still had his eyes on the retreating forms of his friends walking off, thinking of how cute they looked together, really like a couple in love, and he sighed and closed his eyes for a second as he tried to shake off the longing he felt to take Chanyeol's hand. 

They had drank enough and now that he was alone with Chanyeol, without the presence of his friend to hold him back, he couldn't let himself get too comfortable and cross the blurred lines between them. An accidental kiss last time had been enough to keep him shaken up for a week, he wouldn't allow himself to slip like that again. 

"So," Chanyeol spoke from beside him, making Baekhyun look up at him, "would you like to come back to my place for another drink? I mean- like, a non-alcoholic one. You could meet my dog?" He looked a little flushed, cheeks red as he tucked his chin into his scarf, as if he was scared that Baekhyun would say no and was hiding himself from the rejection.

Baekhyun knew it was best to say no, because if they wanted this to work Chanyeol would have to see him as someone else than Jaehyun and well, with the amount of alcohol in their blood that may be a little difficult. But then again, they had spent the whole night together already, so weren't they past the point of no return? 

"Sure," he heard himself say, breaking into a smile when Chanyeol did too, "gotta make sure you don't end up with another pair of ripped jeans, right?" It was a joke, reminding the taller of the last time they saw each other, "but yeah, I'd love to see where you live. It's only fair since you know my address too."

Chanyeol nodded before he stuck his hands in his pockets and used his head to point the way, "alright, come on then." He turned, started walking, and Baekhyun trailed behind him until he caught up with Chanyeol's large strides. They walked closely then, but not close enough to touch, and although Baekhyun wouldn't have minded moving closer he decided this was fine too.

It was quiet, the only sounds around them from their shoes against the pavement getting lost in the bustling of the city. It was peaceful, even though Baekhyun felt the need to talk. He wanted to just say something, to get a conversation going simply because he was interested in Chanyeol's thoughts, but, as before, the taller beat him to it.

"Hey," he brought out, head tilted upwards to the sky, sounding surprised as he spoke, "it's snowing. The first snow of the year." Baekhyun looked up when he heard that, and sure enough, small specks of white were floating in the air, slowly making their way down to the ground where they lingered for a few more seconds before they disappeared. 

Baekhyun remembered how last year he had felt dreadful seeing the first snow, because he hadn't had a home then. He had dreaded it because he knew how he’d have to sleep out in the cold while the snow covered him, but this time that was different. This year he had a house, he had friends and... well, whatever Chanyeol was to him. This year it felt exciting, the thought of having a snowball fight with Minseok or walking Chanyeol's dog wearing thick mittens and warm woolen sweaters making him feel soft and homey. 

He allowed himself to dream up this perfect little world as he looked at the taller guy next to him, who was still smiling as he looked up at the sky and without even thinking about it, Baekhyun did something very stupid and careless.

The way he had stepped closer to Chanyeol should have warned him enough, but his hand had moved before he could stop it from doing so. He only snapped out of it when his hand followed Chanyeol's sleeve, going down and down until he could slip his hand into Chanyeol's pocket, right alongside the taller boy's own. It was warm for the second his hand lingered there, with the tips of their fingers pressed together, and then Baekhyun pulled back again, just as Chanyeol startled and pulled out his hand along with Baekhyun's. 

Going red, Baekhyun bowed his head slightly as he started spluttering his apology, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to- it just happened, I..." he trailed off, but it was okay because Chanyeol chuckled at him, making no big deal of it. 

When Baekhyun looked up again he felt Chanyeol's gaze on him, and when a snowflake landed on his nose, the taller one leaned in and used his thumb to wipe it away. He was laughing, but the sound could hardly be heard over Baekhyun's heartbeat.

His smile was bright and beautiful and it was begging Baekhyun to be kissed, but he knew better now than to let himself lose control of his thoughts.

He only realised they had stopped walking when Chanyeol picked up again, and after Baekhyun got himself together again he rushed after him, feeling how luckily the seriousness of his mistake had disappeared again, "hold up, you have the longest legs in the world, while I don't. Are you going to make me run?" 

The taller didn't comment on it, he kept taking large strides on purpose until Baekhyun was whining and then only then did he slow down enough to give the shorter a break. As Baekhyun panted while he walked, Chanyeol started humming a tune that he didn't recognise, but that was pleasant to listen to regardless.

Around them the snow kept falling, and Baekhyun felt himself grow content again, the previous blush in his cheeks getting chased away by the cold. It was nice though, because it wasn’t actually too cold to be outside, especially not considereing how Baekhyun was wrapped up in so many layers. It was just the right temperature for a walk, and Baekhyun felt at ease.

Chanyeol stopped humming rather abruptly, holding up a hand up to catch the snowflakes as he walked, and then, as he stared at the way they fell in his palm, he asked Baekhyun, "do you know that about this superstitious thing some Koreans believe in? About the first snow?" 

Baekhyun swallowed hard at the question, actually knowing exactly what Chanyeol was talking about. He had been an angel after all, and as an angel he had been expected to know about all the sayings and superstitions linked to love in every country in the world.

He knew about the way people threw coins in fountains to wish for true love to come to them and of how they would rip the petals of flowers to determine whether someone had feelings for them or not.

There were so many beliefs about love, and in Korea, the first snow was special. They say that if you are with the one you love during the first snow, your love will either blossom, if it hasn't yet, but if it has then it only means how you will be together forever. 

The fact that Chanyeol was asking him, did that mean anything? Did Chanyeol think of him as more, or were these the remniscants of his previous love with Jaehyun? Maybe Chanyeol only wanted to tell him how he had been with Jaehyun during the first snow years ago, maybe he didn’t mean anything at all. However, whatever it was, Baekhyun wanted to know. 

"No?" He asked, trying to act like he hadn’t heard it before but was curious to find out more about it, "about the first snow? What would be superstitious about the first snow of the year?" Chuckling a little, he tried to read into the situation by looking at Chanyeol's face, but the guy’s expression was calm and collected, not showing much at all.

"Well, they just say that-" he paused, and Baekhyun saw the slight frown before it disappeared again as Chanyeol straightened his face, "that if you're with someone you like...like someone you enjoy hanging out with, the next year will be very good and you'll be very happy." 

A lie. 

Chanyeol was lying to him, making it sound so much more innocent. As if being with a friend was at all special, and then... only the next year? No, Chanyeol was lying and he was clearly doing it on purpose, thinking Baekhyun didn't know about the actual meaning behind it and trying to keep him in the dark.

Why? Why was he lying then? Had Baekhyun been right to think Chanyeol meant more with it, that maybe he saw this moment as being with someone he liked? It seemed almost unbelievable, because he couldn't possibly like Baekhyun for Baekhyun, could he? Not this soon after the news of Jaehyun. Or could he?

Baekhyun knew too little about loss and grief to make sense of it. He only knew love and even then he didn't really know that much at all, otherwise he wouldn't have failed his job as an angel the way he had. Baekhyun was pretty much a failure of an angel and a failure of a demon, fit for neither job, and now he was failing at being human too.  

However, before he could ask or make a point about how Chanyeol had lied about the snow, the boy stopped and tucked his hands into his pockets again. As Baekhyun averted his attention back to the other, he noticed how it was a key Chanyeol was taking out of his pocket. "We're here." 

Chanyeol’s apartment complex was bigger than Baekhyun’s and about a hundred times less shabby. The same could be said about Chanyeol’s actual apartment.

Although it became clear straight away that Chanyeol wasn’t a neat freak, he wasn’t sloppy either. The place was clean, but there was an occasional stray book somewhere it didn’t seem to belong, just like there was a guitar still on the couch. It looked homely, like it was being lived in by someone who enjoyed living there. Not like Baekhyun’s place, which looked pretty empty and cold.

After Chanyeol dropped his keys on the table next to the door and started unbuttoning his coat, Baekhyun reached for his own, only to be caught off guard when a bundle of something was at his feet. The tiny barking thing jumped at him, almost making him lose his balance, and when he looked down he saw what resembled a ball of black curls running around, a tiny tail wagging back and forth as the puppy moved away a tiny bit only to run right back to him.

“Toben,” Chanyeol warned as he hung up his coat, and Toben instantly stopped barking but stayed close to Baekhyun anyway, turning in circles around his legs.

Baekhyun handed his jacket to Chanyeol, not daring to step away in fear he would somehow step on the dog, and the taller took it with a chuckle. Once his hands were free, Baekhyun got down on his knees, hands finding the dog’s curly fur and he ruffled it as Toben jumped up again, turning his head to lick Baekhyun’s palm. He laughed at it, feeling really light, but it died down when he realised that he shouldn’t feel this comfortable. This shouldn’t feel like him coming home with Chanyeol after a night out together.

This shouldn’t feel like a dream of what he could have, but it did. He could see himself sleeping in a bed, Chanyeol’s arm wrapped around him and Toben at their feet. He could see himself at the kitchen island he spotted when he walked further into the building, actually making a proper meal instead of eating ramen or some other cheap food he had managed to score.

Sure, Baekhyun had some money, a little bit of savings, but that was in case of emergencies. He was only just beginning to earn enough money to save up some more, now that he was able to pay of the debts his first year as a human had left him with. It had been difficult, but he was sure he was on the flipside now. His flipside however, was still far from what Chanyeol currently had.

“Oh my god,” Baekhyun whispered as he walked into the apartment a little more, the next thing he saw after the kitchen counter being the Christmas tree near the window. An actual Christmas tree, the top of it high enough to reach his chest, and it was decorated in lights and tinsel and a collection of multi coloured baubels in different shapes, “you have a Christmas tree.”

Chanyeol let him run up to it, Toben at his feet as he followed Baekhyun’s excitement. He let Baekhyun touch the tinsel with his fingers, and he joined the fallen angel there a little later.

“I do,” Chanyeol said, “the baubels are plastic though. I didn’t want real ones, you know, with Toben.” Baekhyun felt himself nod at the explanation, but he was too caught up in admiring the tree that he really didn’t do much else.

“Do you like it?” Chanyeol asked a few moments later, noticing the way Baekhyun was taking it all in with glee, and he should have known it was a stupid question to ask. “Of course I do,” Baekhyun answered, stating the obvious, “I love Christmas trees. Anyone who doesn’t must be an idiot. If I had enough money I would have bought one for my shitty apartment too.”

“Jaehyun hated Christmas trees. He hated Christmas in general, thought it was nothing but a capitalistic trick to get people to spend money,” Chanyeol remarked, a little off-handedly, and Baekhyun huffed lightly at it, as if they weren’t actually talking about the taller’s ex-boyfriend, “well then he was an idiot. A huge idiot.”

Chanyeol hummed, “we’d fight over it every year. It would take me about a week to convince him to let me put up a tree, but he’d always give in. I have a handful of pictures of us in front of trees where all he does is look very uninterested.” He didn’t sound very affected by the memory, but Baekhyun paused and decided now wasn’t the time to laugh about it.

He watched Chanyeol’s profile as the guy stared at the tree a little wistfully, and once again Baekhyun was dying to know what he was thinking. And once again he was denied that privilege as Chanyeol turned his head to him and served him a smile that was obviously covering things up, “I’m glad you like it though. And nice to know there’s another thing that makes you different.”

Baekhyun wasn’t sure what that meant, whether that was a good or a bad thing, or just an observation. He was starting to grow tired of how unclear the lines between them were and he wondered if maybe it was just best to get his coat and go home instead of stay here and feel so confused and on edge.

But Chanyeol turned away to get them both the drink he had promised, and Baekhyun’s strength weakened again. Who was he kidding? If he had to decide between being at home, alone in his stupid room, or here with Chanyeol in a slightly awkward atmosphere but inside a warm and comfortable home, he didn’t even have to think twice.

“What kind of fucking job do you have that you get to enjoy this when I’m living in the metaphorical hell zone of Seoul?” Baekhyun asked as he eyed the rest of the room. The large TV, the gaming station underneath it, the acoustic guitar on the couch and its electric friend in the far corner. God, was he jealous. How badly he wanted to sit on that couch with his knees pulled up, fuzzy socks on and a cup of tea in his hands while he watched some drama on the LD screen.

Chanyeol walked over to his kitchen as he laughed at Baekhyun’s question and Baekhyun could hear cupboards being opened, mugs clinking together while he walked over to the couch. The other answered his question just when Baekhyun flopped down next to the guitar. “I’m a teacher,” He said, putting two mugs down on the counter, “I teach at a kindergarten nearby.”

Baekhyun raised his eyebrows at that, not sure if he should have expected it or not. Chanyeol, a kindergarten teacher. Helping young children with their Korean, with counting and reading, playing games with the kids. Baekhyun could see him do that, his big smile making every child fall in love with him straight away.

“Really? I suppose it suits you, as far as I can tell,” Baekhyun commented as he watched Chanyeol pour some water into one mug. He paused above the second before he looked up at Baekhyun, eyebrows slightly furrowed, but it wasn’t because of Baekhyun’s comment. He was thinking about something else.

“I almost just poured what I’m so used to,” he admitted, “you do like tea, right? Jasmin?” he looked at Baekhyun questioningly, not meant to remind him of the actual link that had brought them together, but he did. Baekhyun immediately felt like he had been put back into place, reminded of how he was still in Jaehyun’s body, and he felt the easy smile slip off his face.

He nodded, sounding very professional when he answered, “I love tea. Jasmin is fine.” Chanyeol nodded as well before he looked back at the mug, pouring water in the second one as well. Suddenly it was silent, and Baekhyun looked back at Toben for a second to see the dog had made himself comfortable on its bed. So far for that distracting factor.

Feeling restless while Chanyeol moved about, Baekhyun decided to pick up the guitar that had been next to him and he placed it in his lap. He didn’t know how to play, had never had time to sit down and practice even if he would have liked to, and now that he had the time, he didn’t have the money to even buy a guitar.

Still, he let his fingers strum along the strings, making a soft sound that didn’t sound like much at all. It was a little dull, like the feeling in his chest, and he sighed deeply at the coincidence.

“Do you play?” Chanyeol asked as he sat down on the chair near the couch, at a safe distance away, and Baekhyun was honestly a little thankful. After the whole hand-holding incident before, he didn’t know what else he could end up doing tonight, even though a brief mention of Jaehyun had made him sober up rather quickly.

He shook his head, ready to put the guitar back again for he felt like he had taken it without permission now, “no. I wish I could, but I don’t-“ he stopped, didn’t want to keep saying how he didn’t have the money for a lot of things. The last thing he needed was Chanyeol’s pity, and knowing what kind of guy Chanyeol was, he surely would pity him. “Nevermind.”

“I’ll teach you,” Chanyeol suggested as he put his mug down, and he sounded so excited about it that Baekhyun didn’t have the heart to turn him down. He could already tell this was a mistake by the way his lungs shrunk as Chanyeol got up and flopped down next to him, on the side where Baekhyun held the neck of the guitar. Oh god, this wasn’t smart, not at all.

“It’s easy,” Chanyeol went on, as if he didn’t notice the tension between them whatsoever, “you just need to know which strings to put your fingers on.” Chanyeol took a hold of the hand that had been on the neck of the guitar and he made Baekhyun stretch his fingers, “I’ll teach you an easy one. The A is the easiest, it’s just-“ he spoke as he tried to position Baekhyun’s hand in such a way that three of his fingers were pressed to three strings right underneath each other.

“Now strum it,” Chanyeol told him, and Baekhyun was surprised his hand actually managed to move, because his head was a mess. Chanyeol was so close to him that Baekhyun could breathe him in and the scent clouded his mind to the point where nothing made sense anymore.

He felt himself leaning over, catching himself from actually falling against Chanyeol right in time, and he whined at the back of his throat as a hand closed over his own again, wanting to reposition his fingers. “Are you sure-“ Baekhyun croaked out, pausing because he had to swallow around the dryness of his mouth, “that this is a smart idea?”

He shouldn’t have asked. He should have just manned up and swallowed it, because the question made Chanyeol look up, his face up close in Baekhyun’s space, and now he really couldn’t breathe. They were so close that Baekhyun could see the different colours swirling in the irises of Chanyeol’s eyes, so close their noses were almost touching, and it would have been so easy for them to lean in and kiss now, but Baekhyun turned his head away.

“I- uh,” he was starting to push the guitar away, feeling how Chanyeol’s hand fell from his, and he stood up while he fussed about where to put the thing now that the tall idiot next to him had taken its previous spot. God, he felt flustered and like a bigger idiot himself for having agreed to come here. It was so easy though, falling into this trap, and he always realised it when it was already way too late.

“Baekhyun,” Chanyeol spoke just as Baekhyun finally put the guitar in the empty holder next to the electric one. He had almost dropped it, twice, and along with being flustered his hands were now clammy and shaky. He felt overwhelmed with the need to flee, to get away before it was really too late and he’d lose Chanyeol forever, but when he aimed to walk to the hallway next, a hand closed around his wrist.

Chanyeol was leaning over the couch, almost tipping over, but he had succeeded in stopping Baekhyun from walking away, which was apparently worth it to him. With a deep breath he hoisted himself back up, letting go of Baekhyun’s wrist for a second, but when he had stabilised himself he reached for it again, even though Baekhyun hadn’t actually tried to move away from him again.

“Don’t run,” Chanyeol begged while he looked up at him with pleading eyes, and there it was again… It was so easy to cave and give in to him when he was like this, but Baekhyun shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. “I’m sorry. I’ll sit back in my chair and drink my tea and you can drink yours and we can talk about something pointless again and then I can wave you off without feeling like I made a mistake.”

It wasn’t fair, the way Chanyeol could so easily persuade him, because now Baekhyun no longer had any reason to leave. Chanyeol had apologised, he had said he wouldn’t do anything inappropriate again and that they’d be seated in different chairs. If they would follow those rules then Baekhyun was sure it would be okay, so he did the only thing that was appropriate: he stayed.

True to his word, Jaehyun’s ex moved to his own chair and took his cup of tea in his hands. He waited for Baekhyun to follow his example before he hummed and stared at the window when he tried to think of a question to spark a conversation less serious than before.  

“What does your favourite outfit look like?” Chanyeol asked eventually, carefully eying Baekhyun from the corners of his eyes. The angel-turned-demon decided to take a sip of his tea first, hoping it would calm him down some, and then he snorted as he pointed at his body, “pretty much this.”

He knew it wasn’t satisfactory though, and so he described some more, “I love button downs, because I can button up or down based on where I am and who I’m with. It’s simple and can be both professional and sexy. Also, skinny jeans, always skinny jeans. They show off my hips. And I love wearing chokers and bracelets. I think they look edgy.”

“Hmm, they do,” Chanyeol agreed, “they look good on you. I think you should wear some more colour, though. I’ve only seen you in dark colours, oh and that one white turtleneck sweater, but I thought red was your favourite colour.”

Baekhyun nodded, “it is. I just don’t ever really stumble across colours that suit me, and with my job bright colours aren’t often the smart choice. It’s hot at the bar, when we’re busy it’s even hotter, and I don’t want to be sporting sweat marks all night.” He wrinkled his nose at the idea, “I’d lose so many tips.”

“Fair enough,” Chanyeol commented, and then they just fell silent. It was annoying, the way the air was so tense, and Baekhyun was glad he at least had his mug to hide behind, his tea to drink so he wouldn’t have to get a conversation going. Except for his behaviour wasn’t exactly making things better, because the next question he got was one straight to the point.

“Am I making you feel uncomfortable? Do you really not want to be here?” Chanyeol sounded a little unsure but was asking anyway, and Baekhyun looked away at that. “I just thought that- nevermind. I don’t know what I was thinking,” Chanyeol was shaking his head at his own words, and Baekhyun felt guilty now because it wasn’t actually the younger boy’s fault.

“No, no, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun sat up a little straighter, pleading with his eyes for the other to understand him, “it’s not- it’s not that I don’t want to be here, it’s just that I-“ he paused, deciding whether to be honest or not. He could still lose it all, it could all go wrong, but it already was. Things were already collapsing without him doing anything at all, he couldn’t make it that much worse.

Like a deflating balloon he fell back against the couch and he held the mug a little tighter in his hands, staring at the tea inside of it, “I want to make sure that we don’t fuck this up. I want you to like being with me, with Baekhyun, and I want to- I mean, you have to understand that this body comes with certain memories and feelings, and you’re such a big part of Jaehyun’s subconscious that whenever you get near me, my heart flutters.”

He was basically admitting he liked Chanyeol, or well, that Jaehyun liked Chanyeol, “I want to see you through my own eyes, I don’t want to give in to feelings that aren’t mine, or feelings of which I’m not sure are mine. We just have to be careful that neither of us does something stupid which we’ll end up regretting and will lead to us never talking again.”

Chanyeol seemed to understand him, but he still looked like he wanted to argue against it. And part of Baekhyun desperately wanted to know what it was that he wanted to say about it, but he knew that what his heart was longing to hear fall from the boy’s lips shouldn’t be the words Chanyeol would speak to him. It was difficult, a continuous battle between what was right and what felt right, but he had to hold on.

“So then what, no more seeing each other?” Chanyeol asked, sounding a little bitter, and Baekhyun got it. He didn’t like it either, he wanted to just hang out with the tall, gorgeous man in front of him, but to get anywhere they would have to be strict for a while.

“No, at least not for a little bit. I liked our texting, I looked forward to it every day, and it helped me really get to know who Chanyeol is without constantly feeling like I might just lean in and kiss you,” Baekhyun felt his cheeks heat up as he admitted it, and Chanyeol cleared his throat a little awkwardly in reply before he scratched behind his ear and nodded.

Baekhyun wondered if this was the right moment to leave. It felt like it, and so he went back to his tea, wanting to finish it before he got up. Chanyeol put his own mug down again, never focused long enough to actually drink out of it, and he walked to the window with slow and careful steps, as if he was dancing his way over.

Outside the snow was still falling, Baekhyun could see it as he watched Chanyeol’s back near the window. Unlike before, where he had walked with Chanyeol, now he didn’t get to look forward to walking home alone through the cold.

Chanyeol leaned against the windowsill, staring outside for a while as Baekhyun drank his tea. It helped how the tea was no longer scorching hot, and so within a minute he had finished it.

Once he was done he put the mug down on the table, the sound of the ceramic hitting the glass the only sound in the room until Baekhyun got up.

“I don’t think you should leave,” Chanyeol spoke when he heard him move, but he didn’t turn around to look at him. He had his back still turned to Baekhyun, who was getting tired of having to explain himself. Why didn’t that tall idiot understand what he had been telling him? Was he really that dense? Baekhyun had thought that Chanyeol was smart, but he was now questioning that.

“I can hear your brain buzzing all the way over here,” Chanyeol sighed and he lifted a hand to beckon the shorter closer to him. Baekhyun stared at him for a moment, thinking he had really lost it, but then he decided to trust the taller and he walked up to the window too.

He was about to ask what the hell was going on and why Chanyeol was being so dumb when he saw the blizzard outside. The light falling of snow from before had grown into a snowstorm that had turned the whole sky white.

The streets were covered in a layer of white that didn’t appear too thick to walk through yet, but the few people in the streets right now were covered in white too and they were clearly struggling to move. Everything was whiter than white, so bright to his eyes that he had to squint.

“You’ve only just recovered from the flu, I am not letting you go out there. Your house is at least a twenty minute walk from here, and no way. You’re just going to have to stay here,” Chanyeol walked away from him before Baekhyun could say anything, and although he hadn’t thought much of it he realised exactly what the other had done when he heard a door being locked.

“Hey!” he argued, turning around to rush to the hallway, but when he got there Chanyeol had already gotten rid of the key. He was holding his empty hands up in the air almost innocently, and he shrugged at the way Baekhyun hissed, “you’ll never find it. Just give up and stay, Baekhyun. I’ll take the couch, you’ll have a perfectly fine bed to sleep in so there’s no need to tell me you can’t stay over.”

Baekhyun crossed his arms in front of his chest and huffed, blowing air into his cheeks as he lied, very badly as well, “I wasn’t even going to try and run off, Chanyeol.”

The taller only rolled his eyes and started moving about. Baekhyun watched him open a cupboard and he pulled out some pillows and a duvet he kept there. Maybe he was used to visitors sleeping over. “My bedroom is the door on the right, the bathroom is on the left. I’ll go look for something you can wear in a minute, okay?”

Chanyeol fussed about as he fluffed up the pillows before throwing them on the couch. It happened so fast, the way the couch turned into a make-shift bed, and Baekhyun knew there was no other way now.

Once again, Chanyeol had him trapped right where he wanted him, and he knew trying to flee would only mean he’d narrow the space he’d be able to move in. It was only a matter of time before there was nowhere to go at all, so it was best to stop struggling so much.

“Okay,” Baekhyun answered in the end, worried that no matter what he’d do, soon enough he’d be trapped anyway. He would only be able to run from himself for so long. Chanyeol was nearing in on him, and Baekhyun wondered what he would do once he’d cath him.

 

~

**A/N: So, I'm not saying anything about chapter 14, I'm just leaving this here...**

****


	14. Break of Dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is [M] rated!! Due to some minor sexual... happenings ;-) Have fun!

 

 

Chanyeol had handed Baekhyun a shirt that could have belonged to one of his kids in kindergarten, it was actually that small. He was sure that one wrong move during the night would make it rip at the seams, but he sure as hell wasn't going to ask for one of Chanyeol's own, much larger t-shirts, because... definitely not. 

He’d probably feel so comfortable in it that he wouldn’t want to return it, and that was impossible. Besides, he knew it was best not to get used to it, because he was sure that sticking his nose into the soft worn fabric of a hoodie meant he got to smell what the other smelled like, and that was too much. That made him think _boyfriend_ and got his heart to flutter, so no. He couldn’t.

Which was why he walked around in nothing but that too-tiny shirt and his underwear, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders to hide his body from view, as he walked up to Chanyeol. The tall boy was leaning against the kitchen counter, holding a piece of toast to his mouth as he chewed on the bite he had just taken. A strange late night snack.

"Hey," Baekhyun whispered as he came closer, not wanting to startle the other with his presence. He had been in the bathroom for the past ten minutes, cleaning his face and ridding himself of the make up he had been wearing. He knew he looked less than attractive right now, with his hair a floppy mess and his face bare, but he figured it wasn't the first time Chanyeol saw his body like that. 

Chanyeol looked up to meet his eyes, smiled as he saw Baekhyun shuffling near, "oh, hey. Did the shirt fit?" He asked as he let his eyes roam across Baekhyun's form. There wasn't anything sexual about it, it wasn't like Chanyeol was checking him out, but still Baekhyun felt himself go red at it, as if Chanyeol had x-ray vision and could see right through the blanket.

"Uh, well, half of my stomach is showing, but it will do. I just borrowed this blanket for now," he nodded as he wrapped the blanket around himself a little tighter, like wrapping himself into a cocoon, and he earned himself a chuckle from the boy in front of him.

Chanyeol took another bite as he looked back up and he hummed around a moutful of bread, swallowing thickly before he spoke the words he had been trying to say, "are you going to sleep with that thing around your neck? That can't be comfortable."

Baekhyun's hand instinctively shot up to his neck, feeling how the choker there was still in place. The way Chanyeol had brought his attention to it made him feel trapped again, because he knew he'd have to lie about it, and it was hard to act like he was brushing it off, but somehow Chanyeol bought it, "oh that? I'll take it off once I go to bed. I almost lost it once so I usually put it on my bedside table." 

Chanyeol nodded thoughtfully before he shrugged and went back to his toast. "Anyway," Baekhyun went on, hands tightening in the blanket, "I was wondering if maybe you have like a spare toothbrush, or something?" He felt awkward asking and he would have just skipped it this once, but he really didn't like going to bed with the taste of alcohol still on his tongue. 

"Oh," Chanyeol brought out in surprise as he pushed himself away from the counter, bread still in hand while he started making his way down the hallway, "of course." Baekhyun followed him back to the bathroom, where Chanyeol started to rummage through the cupboard underneath the sink until he held up a pack of toothbrushes in on hand.

As Baekhyun took it, he saw that only two had been taken out of the package before. "I always have a few lying around in case I..." Chanyeol trailed off, leaving it up to Baekhyun to think of what that could mean.

The way he had left his sentence unfinished could mean a lot of things, from expecting Jaehyun's return to having other guests over for the night. Like maybe some close friends or- "oh." Baekhyun blinked as his mouth dropped into a perfect 'O', and with the implication of the word very clear, Chanyeol was confirming Baekhyun's thoughts by not answering him. 

It wasn’t a ‘just in case Jaehyun returns’ thing and neither was it for sleepovers with friends. The missing toothbrushes essentially showed that Chanyeol had been with people since Jaehyun's disappearance, whether they had been one night stands or serious relationships didn’t matter.

Baekhyun actually wasn't the first one staying over in this apartment, for at least two more toothbrushes were gone, and he wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. 

He had to try very hard not to think anything of his staying. After all they wouldn't be sleeping in the same bed and he wasn't exactly staying because he wanted to, simply because he had no other choice. There literally was no way for him to leave this apartment, so he'd just have to suck it up. It was probably a completely different situation from the two other owners of the missing toothbrushes, anyway.

Still, when Chanyeol handed him a toothbrush and told him, "you can use my toothpaste, and just put the toothbrush in the cup along with mine when you're done with it," it made him blush. He knew he shouldn't think anything of it at all, but he couldn't help it.

He wondered whether Chanyeol would refuse him if he were to try anything, or if he'd allow it to happen. He wondered if he'd drop Jaehyun's name, the way Baekhyun had experienced in that dream a while ago, or if it would be nothing like that.

Either way, he nodded to Chanyeol's words, forcing those improper thoughts away and Chanyeol left him with a slightly awkward smile thrown his way. Once he was alone Baekhyun dropped the blanket so he could have his hands free to brush his teeth, glad to have another moment to himself.

As he stood there, impatiently taking the time to rid himself of the alcholic taste that had lingered on his tongue, he thought of how if he were Jaehyun, if he had pretended to be Jaehyun from the very start, he would be crawling into bed with Chanyeol once he'd finish brushing his teeth. 

He could have had warm cuddles and kisses, could have been wearing one of Chanyeol's shirts and could have had the love he so craved, but he had made the decision to be honest. Now, instead of love, they had this strange semi-friendship that teetered on the edge of being so much more, but only because of the one thing they shared. The one person they shared.

It was depressing, honestly.

Once he was done with the minty taste in his mouth he washed it away with water and dropped his toothbrush in the mug, right next to Chanyeol's. He stared at himself in the mirror once more, feeling like he was more out of touch with himself than he had been in a while, and then he turned away and picked up the blanket so he could wrap it around his shoulders again.

He walked out of the bathroom feeling slightly more composed and ready to face Chanyeol, but that composion flew right out the window when he walked into the master bedroom to find the taller one standing there in nothing but a flimsy white t-shirt and a pair of matching white boxer briefs.

Literally, boxer briefs. Like, nothing shows off more than a pair of boxer briefs. For real, Baekhyun was certain that someone was fucking with him, and he wasn't sure whether that person was currently residing in hell or heaven.

It wasn't fair the way Chanyeol kept flaunting himself in front of Baekhyun like he was something the fallen one was allowed to want. He should know how Baekhyun only had so much self-restraint and he was quickly running out of it with all the shit Chanyeol was pulling on him, especially tonight.

"Fuck," he cursed, turning away the second he realised he was staring at Chanyeol's ass, and the blanket helped shield his vision, but only some, because in the end he wasn't fast enough to cover his eyes before Chanyeol turned, and so the last thing he saw was the outline of Chanyeol's dick through his underwear before it all went dark.

From the other side of his curtain, Chanyeol was laughing, and sure. 'Sure, laugh you monster. You're not the one this flustered right now', he thought. This slippery slope was quickly turning into a mess with the way Baekhyun kept sliding, so close to losing his footing.

"I thought," Chanyeol spoke from somewhere near him, and it sounded as if he had come closer, which made more alarm bells go off inside Baekhyun’s head. His theory was confirmed when the blanket was tugged down, bringing Baekhyun's face back into view, and the taller one grinned down at him, "I thought that you were a demon. This whole blushing virgin thing isn't really what I expected to see on a demon." 

Baekhyun stared up at Chanyeol, realising that right now the other looked like he had come right out of hell. Like he was a demon, so confident in his own skin, so playful and so freaking sexy, that Baekhyun felt out of touch with the demon parts he knew were inside of him. Instead he was rendered a blushing mess, like he was a young and inexperienced angel tasting desire for the first time. 

God, this was such a mess, such a fucking mess.

“Trust me, you don’t want to know the shit I’ve done. I’m anything but a blushing virgin,” Baekhyun huffed as he stared back daringly, feeling like Chanyeol had challenged him, and indeed the taller one raised an eyebrow as if he was saying ‘try me’.

Baekhyun shook his head though, “it doesn’t matter though. I- I gave up that life for something more, so I’m trying to live a more… abstinent life, right now.” It was obscene the way Chanyeol licked his lips, making every thought about living a life full of self-restraint seem like he was only lying to himself.

“Sure thing,” Chanyeol replied sweetly, sounding rather amused by what Baekhyun had told him, as if he didn’t truly believe him. On top of that it was almost as if he was flirting, but Baekhyun couldn’t let himself think that that was even a possibility. It was late, they had been through a lot and both of them had alcohol in their system.

Baekhyun was currently residing on Chanyeol’s territory, wearing his clothes and using his toothbrush like it didn’t mean a thing. It was a dangerously grey area, one where Baekhyun kept asking too many questions about Chanyeol’s intentions, and it was best to forget it all and go to bed.

He gave a single nod in response to Chanyeol’s comment before he slipped past him and walked to the bed, “yeah. Anyway, I’m tired. Are you sure you’re okay sleeping on the couch? We could still swap?” he said, trying to be polite, because although Chanyeol’s couch had looked nice, the big bed he sat down on simply looked that much more inviting.

“I’m sure, I’ll be fine out there. I’ve fallen asleep on that couch plenty of times, the only difference is that this time it will be on purpose,” Chanyeol’s smile was finally a little less intense, more innocent than before, as if the whole mood had changed from a dark red to a bright yellow. From tension to the light feeling of banter. All it did was bring Baekhyun more confusion and more confirmation that the alcohol was probably playing with his mind.

Baekhyun waited patiently for Chanyeol to leave him be, and after a short wave and the promise that if he needed anything he could wake Chanyeol at any time, the guy finally left him alone.

It took Baekhyun another minute before he moved, a minute in which he let himself simply exist for a while. He checked out the room very slowly, liking the way Chanyeol had made it his own with pictures and trinkets from whatever places he had visited. It calmed him down to the point where he noticed just how sleepy he was.

After a yawn escaped from his mouth he got up and rid himself of the blanket that had kept him warm up until then. He folded it neatly before he put it down at the foot of the bed, that way it would be there for him in the morning. Then, without further ado, he crawled into the large bed and let his head hit the pillow.

The sheets were soft and fresh against his skin and he made himself comfortable underneath them until the cold of the world outside wasn’t able to get to him anymore. He turned his cheek into the pillow, curled up on his side and closed his eyes, ready to fall right asleep.

Except, the second he really relaxed he became aware of how it felt as if he had wrapped himself up in Chanyeol. The boy was all around him in a way Baekhyun should have expected him to be, because this was the guy’s bed after all, but it overwhelmed him still.

He was there in the scent of the pillowcase, in the dip of the mattress and the heavy feeling of the duvet cover keeping him pressed against the bed. It felt like a warm hug, which was stupid because Baekhyun was as alone as ever, but just having those things around him made him feel a little less lonely.

He should have picked the couch, but it was too late now.

For some reason he had expected for it to hurt, to maybe make him feel bad about everything all over again. The last thing he had expected was for it to feel this content, for him to appreciate it so much, but it was actually nice to lie there and not feel bad about it.

After the very fucked up night he had already gone through it was nice to let himself enjoy this for a little, without the complications of having a real person in bed with him. He let himself have this much because he felt like he had kept himself collected through every challenge Chanyeol had served him, and this was his tiny reward.

Once the initial shock of feeling so close to Chanyeol had worn off, Baekhyun closed his eyes only to fall asleep straight away, feeling like he was falling into the most wonderful dream he had had in a while.

Because that was what it felt like: a dream. A wonderful and perfect dream, like the one he had had the first night he had met Chanyeol. And again, like back then, this was a dream full of touches, full of longing and sweet, burning love. It was a dream that was too real, that felt like waking up to perfection, and it took such a long time for his brain to realise that it was exactly that.

A gush of cold wind hit his side as a body crawled into the bed alongside him. It wasn’t enough to pull him out of that falling sensation he had been experiencing since his body had relaxed into the mattress, but enough to bring his mind to the awareness of something happening around him.

What startled him more was the move that came after, which was that of a body slowly settling down on top of his. He became aware of the heavy weight of a lower body on top of his hips, the feeling of skin against his upper legs, and as he moved up his hands they came into contact with the slightly chilly skin of a pair of strong thighs that were straddling him. The skin was soft, the muscles taut underneath it, and Baekhyun breathed in deeply as he tried to feel for more.

His fingertips had barely managed to slide up, finding a trail of hair on what appeared to be a toned stomach, before he could feel the body on top of him moving once more right before a pair of lips crashed into his.

It was a little harsh, almost bruising, but it wasn’t the cold bucket of ice Baekhyun needed to wake up properly. Although the first touch had been bruising, the kiss turned soft and languid after mere seconds, and Baekhyun felt something dark curl in his stomach as a tongue licked at the seam of his lips right as the hips on top of him realigned with his, a body roll making their lower bodies move together, and as Baekhyun gasped, that tongue slipped past his lips.

There was warmth everywhere, from Baekhyun’s mouth to his chest, where hesitant fingers were tracing his collarbone, to his pelvis, where things were starting to come alive. He could feel how every flick of the tongue against his sent a shockwave down to the lower half of his body, how with every roll of those hips against his, his cock started to respond more.

Honestly, his dick was more aware of the situation than Baekhyun’s head was, and it took him so long to catch up that by the time he opened his eyes and saw Chanyeol’s lashes fanned against his cheeks as he kissed Baekhyun, his too-small shirt had been pushed up as far as it could go, right underneath his armpits, and strong hands were holding on to his waist.

Finally he got dunked by the bucket of icy cold water he should have felt coming minutes ago, and Baekhyun gasped for air again as he roughly turned his head to the side. Chanyeol’s parted lips fell down, hitting Baekhyun’s jawline, and then he pulled back in shock, his whole body stopping.

They froze like that, with Chanyeol’s breath still tickling the now wet spot on Baekhyun’s face and their hips pressed together sinfully, and it was in that moment, where things felt like they had gotten paused but were actually still happening, that Baekhyun realised exactly what was going on. He realised where he was, why he was there and most importantly, he realised that this was actually reality rather than a dream.

Chanyeol was really sitting on top of him, he had really been kissing Baekhyun like that, and Baekhyun was really, really hard right now.

It annoyed the fuck out of him, because he knew how difficult it was to make well thought through decisions when sporting a hard-on and being in a very compromising position. Chanyeol wasn’t backing away either, which meant that one turn of his head was enough to press play again and take this where it had been heading.

He didn’t know what to think though, his mind was completely blank and time was dragging on. He could only leave them on this break for so long before Chanyeol would make the decision for him, and clearly he was taking too long.

Chanyeol’s breathing became more ragid, his body heavier on top of Baekhyun’s, and Baekhyun felt it when the guy dropped his head to his shoulder. “Please,” Chanyeol begged, “please, Baekhyun, I can’t, I-“ he pressed his lips to Baekhyun’s neck so desperately, kissing him there, and Baekhyun let him. He felt the taller boy’s teeth scrape his skin, felt how he was sucking a slight bruise into his skin, and it made his eyes roll back into his head as his breathing stocked.

Fuck, it had been so long. Baekhyun couldn’t exactly hide his boner, couldn’t say this wasn’t turning him on, but he knew deep down that they were making a mistake by doing this. How could they not when the ground beneath their feet was this unstable? Going through with this could mean Chanyeol would wake up tomorrow and not dare look at him.

Baekhyun knew he could very well end up being the third toothbrush to be thrown out, but he was tired. He was so tired of fighting, of denying himself what he wanted for the sake of being good. He wanted love, he wanted Chanyeol, but it was impossible for him to stick to his angelic side only, because he was no longer an angel. He was a fallen one, he was both pure of intention and dark of thought, and right now he knew what he wanted. And he knew what Chanyeol wanted too.

It helped to think of how if Baekhyun was making a mistake, then so was Chanyeol. They were making this mistake together, and maybe in the morning they would be able to fix it together, but right now it was already too late anyway. Chanyeol was already begging and Baekhyun was already moving, pushing up and into his touch.

It was too late, and so Baekhyun turned his head back and felt how Chanyeol claimed his lips once more.

Another shock, a spark of electricity coursed through him as their crotches aligned and Chanyeol moved. Their underwear prevented the move from being too overwhelming, too stimulating, but Baekhyun could feel the skin of Chanyeol’s calves against his own and that was just as much a turn on as anything.

The deeper they kissed, the longer they touched, the more Baekhyun let himself go. His fingers dipped into the back of Chanyeol’s underwear, feeling him up a little and letting his finger trace the cleft of his ass before his fingers hooked into the band of the boxer briefs.

He dragged them down without asking for permission, which caused Chanyeol to make a sound against Baekhyun’s lips when his erection was released from beneath the fabric, moving to rest against Baekhyun’s exposed stomach.

The sound turned into a whimper when the older confidently wrapped his fingers around him, and it took nothing but a second before Chanyeol was bucking his hips into the touch. It was hot, so amazingly hot.

Baekhyun had to admit that he had thought about this, but he hadn’t actually imagined it would be happening right now. Yet there he was, touching Chanyeol’s cock while the taller attacked his neck with more kisses, and it came as a surprise when Chanyeol didn’t whisper something dirty into his ear, but something completely pointless instead.

“You’re still wearing your choker,” Baekhyun heard the words as they were breathed into his ear, and his hand faltered for a second before he tightened his hold and made Chanyeol whimper once more, his upper body hunching in a little.

He didn’t reply, didn’t know what to say to the comment anyway, and so he just used his mouth to make Chanyeol shut up. His hand left the guy’s cock and came up to tug him closer by his hair, something that made Chanyeol’s hips stutter in their movement for a second.

The kiss they shared then was dirty and a little messy, both of them not caring about the rules or who was in control, and they pushed and pulled until Chanyeol had enough of it and he broke free a bit unexpectantly. Sitting back, Baekhyun wondered if the other had finally realised this was an awful move to make, but instead of rolling away from him, Chanyeol placed his hands on Baekhyun’s hips and shifted slightly.

With nimble fingers he beckoned him to lift his hips up, enough for Chanyeol to pull down his underwear as well, and Baekhyun obeyed without pausing. He felt the cold air slip underneath the covers as Chanyeol helped him get rid of his boxers, but then that warm body was back against his.

It stole Baekhyun’s breath away, the feeling of their erections pressed together, and he realised just how much he had missed this. Nothing felt better than pure skin against skin, with nothing in the way to create an annoying ache, to keep them apart.

Baekhyun had enjoyed it even in the times where it hadn’t been sexual, where he had only slept squashed against Tae-ho’s naked body, but this was Chanyeol, and Chanyeol was in his heart, which only made it that much more intense.

Their hips dragged together slowly, almost torturously, and Chanyeol held himself up with his hands so he could look down at Baekhyun as he did it. He was testing the way Baekhyun would respond to the slow pace, his eyes always looking for signs of how it was driving him crazy, but even his curiosity could only win it from desire for so long, and soon enough the pace had quickened, until they were almost humping each other.

“God, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol said, making Baekhyun’s heart jump up to his throat, where it clogged up his windpipe. He swore he couldn’t breathe, his lungs kept shrinking until they were nothing but wrinkly raisins before his body would allow him another quick burst of oxygen, enough to start it all over again.

Chanyeol was saying his name, Chanyeol was kissing it into his skin, and it was glorious.

The hand that covered him eventually, or well, covered them both, was even more glorious. It was exactly what he needed, and without even having to think about it he brought down a hand of his own to help Chanyeol create a more stable rhythm. Together they moved, and Baekhyun was so used to picking up the sound that he could hear it the second Chanyeol was close.

He had this delightful little raspy inhale every other second, the frequency of it increasing the closer he got, and Baekhyun could actually see the way he held his breath high up in his lungs as he tried to reach his high. His hand faltered slightly too, but Baekhyun made up for it, and with a final few touches of Baekhyun’s thumb over the head of Chanyeol’s leaking cock, he came.

The loud moan that fell from Chanyeol’s lips as he spilled across Baekhyun’s stomach along with the expression of pure ecstacy on his face were absolutely mesmerising, and Baekhyun’s eyes were glued to the boy as he helped Chanyeol through the aftershocks of his orgasm before he pushed the guy’s hands away so he could jerk himself off a little faster.

He could slowly see the way Chanyeol was starting to land back down on earth after his high, and he knew he would have to get himself there before Chanyeol’s feet would touch the earth, which was why he arched his back and tightened his grip almost painfully so. And then he came, growling deep in his chest as he bit down on his lip and felt wave after wave of pleasure roll over him.

His orgasm melted his bones the same way Chanyeol’s seemed to have melted too, because the boy that had hung over him then fell down next to him and didn’t move for a solid minute. The duvet had moved down their bodies, leaving Baekhyun’s dirty chest exposed, and it helped him cool down fairly quickly, the heat in his cheeks slowly draining away.

Once Baekhyun felt like he could move again he let his hands roam around him, searching for either one of their underwear so he could wipe himself clean, and while he did he could hear Chanyeol laugh from next to him. It was a content laugh, one that didn’t hold any anger or disappointment, only amusement and tiredness.

After Baekhyun had thrown the dirty underwear away from the bed, he felt how Chanyeol pulled the covers up around them a little higher, how a hand snaked around his waist a little unsurely. It made him turn his head so he could look at Chanyeol’s face, but the boy had closed his eyes from him and there was nothing left to read in that smile.

“Is this okay?” came the question when Chanyeol could feel his stare, “do you mind if I just stay here now?” and Baekhyun didn’t have the heart to send him away, didn’t feel like having a talk about this just yet, which was why he sighed and rolled over onto his side, his back turned to Chanyeol.

It didn’t help much, however, because all Chanyeol did was see it as an invitation to spoon the shorter from behind, pressing his naked lower body against Baekhyun’s, who couldn’t help but snort as he realised how desperate they had been. Both of them were still wearing their shirts even though they were naked from the hips down, and neither one of them bothered to do anything about it at all.

They fell asleep like that, curled up around each other with pliant limbs and a pair of soft lips pressed to the nape of a neck. They fell asleep knowing that whatever consequences there would be, they could wait and deal with them in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooo what will waking up be like, huh? ^^ Anyway, thank you all for your lovely comments, kudos and all that jazz <3  
> Also, before I go... I don't want people to think about this not having been consentual sex. Baekhyun very much allowed it. I would never write anything that isn't consentual!!


	15. Crash and Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Did you think of him?" The implication of who he meant with 'him' was clear as day, and he could see the way the little bit of colour that had been in Chanyeol's cheeks drained away within seconds. His eyes, which had been watching Baekhyun’s face intently, turned a shade darker. His jaw set tightly, Chanyeol let his eyes drop from Baekhyun’s face, and that was answer enough for Baekhyun.

~

 

When Baekhyun woke up hours later, he wasn't exactly surprised to find Chanyeol was still wrapped around him the way he had been when they had ended up falling asleep the night before. Or, in the middle of the night for that matter, because Baekhyun hadn't exactly gotten a view of the alarm clock after his rude awakening, but he had been sure it had been far past midnight.

One arm was curled around his waist almost vice like and Baekhyun sighed into the pillow quietly as he tried to focus on his thoughts rather than the way their bodies were pressed together. Should he leave? Should he go look for the key and leave without another word, hoping they could go back to their texting without either one having to mention what had happened? 

No. He couldn't do that. It wouldn't fix anything and it would only make the mistake seem that much bigger. They would have to treat this like it was a lighter matter, talk about it but as if they were talking about the weather rather than the actual thing.

They were doomed, honestly.

God, he still couldn't believe how easily he had given in. All it had taken were some sleepy kisses, a few soft touches, and Baekhyun had lost it. Sure, in his defense, it had been an attack on him while he had been asleep, and that meant that his brain hadn't been as awake as it usually was. If that had been the case then he was sure he would have stopped it in time. Right?

But asleep or not, it didn't change the fact that right now he had to live with the consequences of his actions. Because he hadn't stopped it, he had very much let it happen. They had both let it happen, and now they would be forced to deal with the hangover.

Of course, in the heat of the moment Chanyeol had wanted him. Chanyeol had even called him by his name and had made him want it too, but maybe Chanyeol had only been driven by grief. Maybe sadness had made him long to be with, or maybe it had been the alcohol they had consumed in combination with how long it had been since he had last touched someone. That was surely what it had been for Baekhyun. Surely.

Baekhyun sighed again, not liking how much his head was starting to hurt from all the possible outcomes of the talk they, without a doubt, needed to have. He would only get more anxious thinking about the ‘what if’s’. In the end there was no actual way of knowing what Chanyeol would say or do once he woke up, which meant Baekhyun should just give up and try to relax until the taller would open his eyes.

But that was the thing, though. Because Baekhyun didn't want it to go like that. He didn't want Chanyeol to wake up while he was there. He didn’t want to see the look on his face as he realised what he was doing, didn’t want to feel him pulling away from Baekhyun in shock.

He didn't want his heart to drop like that. He wanted stable ground underneath his feet, something to hold on to in case Chanyeol's explanation would hurt, and that meant that he had to get out of the bed.

It was a feat that proved to be more difficult than predicted, because Chanyeol's arm was curled around him so tightly that Baekhyun had trouble even peeling his fingers free so he could lift the arm around him and climb out. It was as if Chanyeol's body knew he would try to escape, or maybe he was so used to holding Jaehyun that close, that his body just locked. 

Baekhyun took his time, knowing it would be better than having Chanyeol wake up from movements that were too rushed to be subtle. So he took a few minutes to slowly get himself free from his hold, taking short breaks every once in a while to ensure Chanyeol stayed asleep. A few minutes, and then he was freed. 

He rolled away from the sleeping body next to him and let his feet hit the cold ground of Chanyeol's bedroom. It was strange to stand there in nothing but his tiny t-shirt, which was why he bent down and picked up Chanyeol's boxer briefs, the pair that had gotten lost during the night. It was the only clean pair in the room, with Baekhyun’s used for other purposes, and so Baekhyun settled on wearing Chanyeol’s underwear instead.

His stomach still felt a little gross and sticky, and it made Baekhyun feel a hundred times less innocent than he had felt a day before. He had really done _that_ with the beautiful tall boy behind him on the bed. He had really let himself go that easily, it was almost enough to make his cheeks flush a bright red.

After another look over his shoulder, to confirm Chanyeol was still asleep, Baekhyun shuffled out of the bedroom and into the hallway. He crossed it to get to the bathroom, where he turned on the lights and stared at himself in the mirror a little dazedly.

His hair was a mess, strands sticking out in every direction, and his lips were red and bruised. Down his neck lingered a path of red splots, each one darker than the other, only interrupted by the black stripe of leather that was still secured around his throat. 

Chanyeol liked to bite and leave his marks, that much was clear from their little rendevouz, and Baekhyun hated how all he could do was think of how hot that was. He couldn't deny how he felt loose and more relaxed, and he could hear Minseok's voice in the back of his mind telling him how he had been right about Baekhyun needing to get laid.

Shaking the thougt off, Baekhyun brushed his fingers through his hair to flatten it some and then he bent over to throw some cold water in his face, waking himself up a little more. It felt nice, the way the cold washed away all the worries for a second.

He focused on nothing but cleaning himself up. His face, his stomach and then his thoughts. When he was done he turned away and left the bathroom feeling a little less awkward, as if he had just woken up from a really pleasant night feeling fine and ready to laze around all day rather than what was his actual reality. He would love to drop down on the couch and doze off some more, but he knew he was too awake for that now.

Toben was roaming around the living room and his head of curls turned to Baekhyun as the boy walked in. Only seconds later, after the quick pitter patter of paws against the floor signaled the dog's movements, Baekhyun found himself petting the dog just like he had done the day before. 

He lifted the tiny puppy up and into his arms, letting it lick his arm up to his neck, as far ar he could reach, and with a chuckle he carried the dog with him to the window. Outside, the world was still as white as it had been the night before, but the worst storm was over. Now the snowflakes were only floating down like they were tiny feathers carried by the wind, and people were back out in the streets. 

He watched a few kids running around and throwing snowballs at each other while an adult scolded them. He saw cars driving around very slowly, making sure they wouldn't slide, but they were driving around nonetheless. It seemed like the world had started turning again after the blizzard had stopped it for a while, and it kind of matched how Baekhyun felt right now.

"Isn't it beautiful?" He asked Toben, who did nothing but arch his head more so he could lick at Baekhyun's jaw. Baekhyun smiled and ruffled Toben's fur with his fingers, "maybe Chanyeol will take you outside today so you can play some too." 

He felt stupid then, talking to a dog and feeling so content doing so. He had wanted to say 'we' instead of 'Chanyeol' and he realised how dangerous that was. He had walked out onto ice that wasn't thin and not at all stable, and it could lead to him falling through the cracks and plummeting into the dark and freezing water below. 

Slowly he put Toben down again, and the dog stayed with him for a while longer as he stared out of the window, before it got bored and ran off. Baekhyun was left alone with his own thoughts then, but he found his head was pretty empty as he stared at the white winter wonderland in front of him. 

He wished it were night instead, wished he could spot a falling star and claim his wish, because he knew what he'd wish for. He'd wish for a Christmas spent right there, with Chanyeol and Toben and the Christmas tree. He'd wish for dinner and warmth and maybe some wine, for soft blankets and a romantic movie. Cozy, homey, that feeling was all he wanted. 

Instead, rather than spend his time wishing for things he shouldn't even be thinking about, Baekhyun thought it was best to do something about the way his stomach was growling. It would probably be easier to have a talk with Chanyeol when there was food between them to allow certain breaks between sentences and, well, Baekhyun wasn't exactly the happiest when he was hungry so that would help too. 

He walked over to Chanyeol's fridge and opened it to look for things he could use. Baekhyun didn't actually know how to cook many things, because for most of his life food had never been a problem, but now that he was mortal he had to survive somehow and that meant that he should learn how to cook too.

The problem was that Baekhyun was lazy and that there were plenty of cheap foods he could eat without actually cooking, so the only things he knew how to cook were the dishes they served at the bar. There weren't much, but Chanyeol had eggs and Baekhyun thought he could cook a mean toasted egg sandwich. 

The good thing was that it didn't include a lot of work either, it was pretty easy to make, and so Baekhyun set off to mix the eggs while he whistled a tune. His mood brightened considerably as he moved about the kitchen, looking for a bowl and a whisk, for something to toast the bread with.

It was nice, and Baekhyun kind of hoped that Chanyeol would wake up from the noise and the smell so that he wouldn’t actually have to go and wake him up. 

Within minutes he had the eggs in a pan and he was stirring them occasionally with one hand while he prepared the bread with the other. Taking a large knife from the drawer he had opened, he placed down the few slices of bread on top of each other before he attempted to cut them.

Attempted, because instead of the bread, he cut the very tip of his thumb.

The pain felt like nothing but a pinprick, but when he dropped the knife and brought up his hand to look at it, he saw how dark red blood was quickly popping up from beneath the skin. It formed a drop that then ran down his finger, and he whined as he felt the way his heartbeat moved from his chest to his thumb, the thing throbbing uncomfortably while Baekhyun held it up as he maneuvered to the sink.

A quiet sob left his chest as the water hit his finger, the sting of it making him shrink in on himself, and he sucked on his lower lip as he tried to stop himself from actually bursting into tears. It hurt, fuck, it hurt a lot and it wouldnt stop bleeding either. 

Baekhyun tapped his foot against the floor as he let out another long whine, biting his lip so hard that he could feel it split too. God, please make it stop.

"Aish! The eggs!" He heard behind him, the voice loud and startling him, and Baekhyun momentarily forgot about the pain as he looked over his shoulder to see Chanyeol rushing in and getting to the eggs. They were too dark, Baekhyun could tell from where he was standing, when Chanyeol turned off the stove and pushed the pan to another pit before he turned to check up on Baekhyun. 

"What the hell are you- oh shit, you're bleeding," Chanyeol’s furrowed brows raised when he saw Baekhyun’s hand as he came closer. Then he paused for a second, stopping in his tracks before he turned right back around to where he had come from.

Baekhyun watched him run down the hallway and for a second he worried that maybe the taller guy was faint of heart and had gone to throw up while Baekhyun stood there bleeding still, but soon enough he returned with a large first aid kit in his hands. 

Chanyeol dropped the thing on the counter and fumbled to get it opened. "Was it the knife? Is it a deep cut?" He asked, and Baekhyun raised his hand in an attempt to look, which made the bleeding get worse again and so he stuck it back underneath the tap, "I don't know."

Within seconds Chanyeol stood next to him. He swatted Baekhyun’s unhurt hand away in order to turn off the tap and raise Baekhyun's wounded hand in the air, "you're an idiot. If you hold it like that blood keeps flowing to the wound, you need to hold it up so it gets time to stop bleeding."

And so they stood like that for a minute, with Chanyeol holding his wrist up in the air as he tried to inspect the wound.

In that minute Baekhyun had all the time in the world to take in how the other was dressed in pajamas now, such a stark contract to the way he must have looked when he had crawled into bed with him hours before. It wasn't exactly fair how Chanyeol got to wear pajamas while Baekhyun was still entirely too naked, but right now wasn't the time to comment on it. 

The next thing Baekhun saw, was how there was a hickey of his own popping up from underneath the collar of the top. It was a dark red bruise in the shape of his lips, and as Chanyeol tipped his head sideways and looked at his hand a little closer, Baekhyun tried to remember when he had left it there.

"It's not too deep, I'll bandage it up and it should be okay then, it just bled a lot," Chanyeol's assessment came, making Baekhyun snap himself out of his staring and he nodded as he accepted the offer the taller made.

Chanyeol tugged him to the kitchen island, of which a small part functioned as a bar to sit at, and he made Baekhyun sit down on one of the stools before he finally let go of the boy’s wrist. Once he was sure Baekhyun wasn't actually going to run he went back to the box to fetch whatever he needed from there.

"What were you even doing?" He asked, trying to get a conversation going, and Baekhyun sighed. "I was trying to make us breakfast," he admitted, mumbling the words slightly, "but your knives are sharper than I thought and I made a miscalculation." He heard Chanyeol's chuckle as the taller got some alcohol on a cotton swab that he then brought to Baekhyun's finger. 

The shorter held his breath, waiting for the way it would burn in the wound, and sure enough there it was. Baekhyun hissed and squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to bite his lip again to try and distract himself. If there was one thing he hated about being mortal, it was how much more painful things were. When your body was nothing but a host to your soul, pain wasn't as palpable. It was dull and sometimes even pleasant, but as a human it was anything but. Baekhyun hated it. 

"You're an idiot," Chanyeol smiled as he pulled the swab away and went on to get a sort of cream that would prevent the wound from getting infected. Baekhyun watched him quietly, waited for more to be said, but Chanyeol didn't speak again until he was wrapping up the shorter boy's thumb with some bandages. 

"When I woke up,” Chanyeol started, “the first thing I thought was how I must have dreamt it all... from bringing you home to you staying over. I thought it wasn't real, that it had been nothing but my imagination, but then I saw a pair of boxers that wasn't mine, a very dirty pair actually, and I knew that I hadn't dreamt it at all," Chanyeol had completely stopped caring about the accident, even though he was still bandaging Baekhyun's thumb, and instead he was already talking about their night. 

It felt too confronting with Chanyeol standing this close to him, and Baekhyun couldn't really breathe. He forgot all about the pain as he looked at the gorgeous boy in front of him, whose face was displaying how difficult he found it to look for the right words to explain himself. 

"I was really worried you had left when I woke up, but then I could hear you humming about, could hear you roaming through the cupboards, and I found myself smiling," Chanyeol admitted, and Baekhyun couldn't help but act like a know-it-all as he finally muttered a reply, "well I couldn't exactly leave with the front door locked." 

Chanyeol smiled and shook his head at the comment, as if he wasn’t fazed by it at all, "Baekhyun, I unlocked it again before I went to bed." And just like that, Baekhyun couldn't really use that as an excuse anymore. He couldn’t say he had checked and that he had wanted to leave. He had stayed willingly.

"Anyway," Chanyeol continued while Baekhyun stayed silent, because he waiting for that moment where he'd be turned down, "I'm sorry for what I did. I shouldn't have just kissed you without your permission. I shouldn't have put you in the position you were in, pressuring you to do something you maybe didn't even want to do. I said I'd respect your boundaries, yet I crossed them all when I climbed into bed with you." 

See, this was it, this was the start of Chanyeol saying how they had fucked up and how big of a mistake it had been to take things that far. This was it, and the stupid thing was that he had known. He had known it was coming, but still it made him want to throw up in fear. 

"I just, I-," Chanyeol paused and his face looked that much more troubled as he tried to word his thoughts, "I lay on that couch and couldn't stop thinking. Whenever I closed my eyes I saw your face, I thought back to our night and how all I really wanted was to kiss you. And then I did, I wasn't even really that conscious of it, but I had walked over to my room, crawled into bed and I was kissing you."

The explanation of why Chanyeol had done it was an expected one, but one that hurt nonetheless, because it left Baekhyun with that ever-there question of whether that was due to him or due to him having Jaehyun's body. Because his face was Jaehyun’s face and his body was Jaehyun’s body. He hated that, hated how it was always a thing he questioned, but he couldn’t help thinking about it. 

"Please," Chanyeol said as he let go of Baekhyun's thumb, having successfully taped the bandage in place, "say something, Baekhyun." He realised how he had been silent throughout the whole thing, letting Chanyeol do all the explaining without letting him know what he thought and how he felt. But in the end, there was only that one question on his mind, which ended up being the thing he blurted out before he could stop his mouth from doing so. 

"Did you think of _him_?" The implication of who he meant with 'him' was clear as day, and he could see the way the little bit of colour that had been in Chanyeol's cheeks drained away within seconds. His eyes, which had been watching Baekhyun’s face intently, turned a shade darker. His jaw set tightly, Chanyeol let his eyes drop from Baekhyun’s face, and that was answer enough for Baekhyun.

And he got it, he really did, but once again his heart was breaking in his chest. "I-" Chanyeol stuttered, but he didn't even bother finishing his sentence and another crack added to the countless ones already in Baekhyun's heart.

He watched the taller one ball his hands into fists and he closed his eyes, as if he didn't want to look at Baekhyun's face right now. "Of course I did, I mean, it's hard not to when you look exactly like him," he breathed it out as if it was laughable, when really it wasn't.

"I did, but I also thought of you. Of Baekhyun, whose favourite colour is red and who likes strawberry ice cream,” Chanyeol summed up the things he knew, such unimportant things in the grand scheme of love, “the guy who can't hold his liquor and gets excited over something as stupid as a Christmas tree. I really did, please believe me when I say that." 

Baekhyun did believe him, he trusted Chanyeol not to lie to him, but it didn't matter because despite the fact that the idiot in front of him had been thinking about him, there had been a second person on his mind alongside him.

While for Baekhyun there had been no one but Chanyeol, for Chanyeol there had been Baekhyun and Jaehyun, and to him it felt like he had been part of some strange threesome and was now losing the one he loved to that other person. It was stupid to think, because Chanyeol hadn’t been his in the first place, but that was how it felt. As if he had handed Chanyeol over to Jaehyun on a golden platter, which was kind of what had happened, in a way. 

Because if Baekhyun had only refused to kiss him, then Chanyeol wouldn't have been reminded of his ex. He wouldn't have thought about that fucker who had departed this world by his own doing and had left this beautiful soul behind, and that was what was so unfair about it. Baekhyun had all the love in the world to offer, but Chanyeol didn't really want that, he wanted Jaehyun. He had always wanted Jaehyun and he always would. 

Baekhyun was nothing but a rebound that luckily enough had the same fucking face, and the worst was that it was his own fault that he was in this position right now. It was his own fucking fault for thinking this could ever work, that going home with Chanyeol for another drink could have actually been an innocent, friendly thing. Of course it would have ended up like this, he should have been able to see it coming from a mile away. He guessed he understood now why people said that love made you blind. 

"I- I don't think this is going to work, Chanyeol," Baekhyun admitted, throwing the words at the taller, who was still standing in front of him, and that clearly hurt. He could see it in the way Chanyeol swayed, taking a tiny step backwards as if he had been stabbed, and he started shaking his head fervently, but Baekhyun wouldn't let him try and argue. 

"Maybe we should have said our goodbyes the night I told you the truth, because let's face it, I'm always going to remind you of him. I'll always have this face and this body, I'll always look exactly like him, but I'm not him and I never will be," Baekhyun explained, "It's only going to hurt both of us, and sooner or later we’ll fuck up again the way we did now, and I can't do that. I can't take the disappointment of knowing you might be thinking of him whenever you're with me. I understand that you can't help it, I really do, I know love is just that way, but I am selfish enough to say I won't put up with that." 

Chanyeol's mouth dropped and he looked like there were a thousand things he wanted to say, but none of them actually came out. His eyes were wide and his lips moved but no words escaped from his throat, and Baekhyun was glad because it would make it that much easier for him to leave.

He pushed himself up from the stool with his good hand and he watched the panic in Chanyeol's eyes spread at that. A hand curled around his wrist when Baekhyun wanted to pass him, like it had done so many times before, but this time Baekhyun wasn't going to let it stop him. "Baekhyun..." Chanyeol whispered, his mouth so close to his ear, but it was pointless.

Baekhyun took a deep breath just as Chanyeol begged him, "please, stay, I can-" and the fallen one interrupted him, a little impatiently, "explain? Chanyeol, you already did. I get it, you don't have to say anything. There's nothing to be sorry about, it's just best for me to go now." 

After a short tug of his hand, Baekhyun had freed himself from Chanyeol's grip, and this time the taller one let him go. He let him walk down the hallway to the bathroom, where Baekhyun got dressed into his own clothes. He took off the shirt he had been wearing but kept on the briefs, and then he walked back to the living room to get his shoes. 

Chanyeol hadn't moved, he was still in the same spot, leaning on the counter as he stared ahead with his eyebrows knitted together. He was almost too lost in thought to see Baekhyun return, and if it weren't for Toben's barking as the dog jumped up at Baekhyun's leg again, maybe he wouldn't have noticed him at all.

It didn't seem to surprise Chanyeol that he was leaving, and Baekhyun was sure he was trying to think of things to say to make him stay, which was why he had to be quick about this. He knew he was weak, knew he didn’t have a lot of self-restraint when it came to Chanyeol, so he begged for the taller not to chase him.  

He didn't say anything before he left for the hallway, putting on his coat quite fast and wrapping his scarf around his neck to make sure he wouldn't get cold. He did all of that with his back turned to the living room, not wanting to see his crush’s face just yet.

When he turned back it was because he knew Chanyeol was there, standing in the doorway. The guy looked a little frantic by now, as if he was really frustrated with how no words were coming out of his mouth, but Baekhyun was thankful. He hoped Chanyeol knew how grateful he was for this, because it made saying goodbye that much simpler. 

"Thank you, for letting me stay over, for giving me a chance to show you my real self," he stated, sending Chanyeol a genuine smile, but he received no smile in return. Jaehyun's ex only swallowed thickly, his hands twitching at his sides as if he wanted to reach out again, but he didn't. Once again, Baekhyun thanked whoever had granted his wish.

"I really hope you'll find peace and room in your heart to one day love again, you deserve that," Baekhyun said with a curtious nod before he turned away swiftly and let his hand curl around the doorknob. 

For a moment he paused then, a moment in which he allowed Chanyeol to make a move. It was nothing but the betrayal of his heart, as if it hoped that in that split moment Chanyeol would finally say something to make him change his mind completely. He had almost expected it, because up until now the other would always try and stop Baekhyun, but this time nothing came, and so his mind won back over. 

Nothing came, no words nor any touches, and it was the final bit of confirmation Baekhyun needed to let go.

He twisted the knob and let the door fall open slowly. It creaked, and Baekhyun cringed at the sound while he desperately waited for the hallway to come into view. Now that he was sure, now that his heart was so close to breaking in two, all he wanted was to leave. He was about to take his first step too, when finally Chanyeol broke out of his trance. 

Baekhyun felt two arms tug him backwards a little roughly, and he fell into a chest, the arms snaking around his shoulders in a tight hold from behind. Chanyeol's nose dropped to his neck, his lips pressed to Baekhyun's skin, and he stopped them both from moving by doing so.

Baekhyun's heart had jumped out of his chest and it was beating rapidly, begging him to reconsider his decision and turn into the arms that were holding him, but it would forever be a tugging war between those two, between the heart and the mind, and Baekhyun always remembered how that heart wasn't just his. He shared that heart with Jaehyun, with the original owner of his body, and when it came to Chanyeol that always meant his heart was biased. Which was why he followed his head instead.

It was easier to peel off Chanyeol's fingers this time, knowing how they twisted together now, and it was a little surprising to find how the other didn't actually try and hold him back again. The second his fingers disconnected Chanyeol let his arms drop to his sides, and Baekhyun saw it as his chance to get away. 

He stepped outside, into the hallway, and after that first step it was easy. His feet kept carrying him forward, away from the warmth of Chanyeol's embrace, and he didn't look back once. Not until he reached the elevator, until he pressed the button and heard the doors close behind him. He didn't look back once to see the tears in Chanyeol's eyes, to see the pain etched on his face.

He didn’t see the way the other was struggling, torn between his own heart and his own head the same way Baekhyun had been, and he left like that. He left without another backward glance, sure that he had missed his last chance of ever seeing Chanyeol’s face again, but he was glad. At least his final memory wouldn’t be a sad one.

As he walked out of the building and into the snow he resisted the urge to look up and find Chanyeol’s window, just to see if maybe the boy was watching him leave in the same way Baekhyun had watched Chanyeol leave his own building. Instead he walked away with his hands tucked into his coat, his head bent, and he quietly said his goodbyes.

A final goodbye, once more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for doing this again! aaaghhh, but things aren't that easy ><   
> Warning! There will be a sneaky lil shit member in the next chapter. A snake he is. Can you guess who?


	16. The Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my point is that if this crush is the real deal, you’ll realise it soon enough. You’ll miss him, you’ll long for whatever you had. And if he has any feelings whatsoever then you’ll know soon enough too. Just you wait. I bet your sweet ass he will try to contact you before the week is over, but you have to be strong then.

 

 

Baekhyun didn’t go home. He needed something, just something to calm down his anxiety and his thoughts. He needed something to make him forget about Chanyeol, make him stop worrying if he was making another mistake, and to start over fresh. He wanted to feel like a new and improved Baekhyun that wouldn’t think of the loss of his first ever crush whenever he looked at himself in the reflection of the shop windows.

Which was exactly why he ended up at Sehun’s shop, walking in for the first time in over a month, and this time he didn’t pause to greet the newest addition of staff behind the desk. His thoughts were too occupied for him to remember how to act polite, and he knew he was being rude when he walked straight up to his self-claimes chair, sat himself down, and turned it so he could look at where Sehun was working on another customer.

Oh Sehun was younger than Baekhyun’s host body, but he was already a lot more successful than Baekhyun would probably ever be as a human. The guy had his own business, his own hair salon, one that was known by most people in the area.

Sure, he had started it with a little help from his father, who had plenty of money, but by now he had already paid off that loan and was making his own profits. He was one of the best hairdressers, if not the best, in this part of Seoul, and rumour had it that he even cut some idols from SM entertainment, whose dorms were only a few blocks away from his shop.

Their lives couldn’t have been more different, yet Sehun liked having his stupid, unsuccessful ass around. He enjoyed hanging out with Baekhyun, no matter how rare those occasions were with how busy both of them were, and Baekhyun enjoyed it too. After all he owed Sehun, and he felt warmth as he looked at the younger boy, for multiple reasons.

The two of them had met about half a year after Baekhyun had come to Seoul, after half a year of keeping himself alive out on the streets. Baekhyun hadn’t been doing anything different from the usual either. He had been sitting at the exact same spot he had been sitting at for over a hundred days, doing the exact same thing, but he had been unknowing of the pair of eyes that had been on him for days.

Sehun had been passing by him for days already before he finally walked up to Baekhyun and told him to please follow him because, and Baekhyun can still quote it, ‘did someone tell you that sideburns and mullets are making a comeback? Because they are most certainly not’.

He had proceeded to drag Baekhyun along until he had settled in one of the chairs and had accepted the help Sehun had offered him. The younger guy had cut his hair and shaved him, had made him feel like he was actually worth something, and Baekhyun had been so thankful. The handsome face that he had first seen, before he had taken Jaehyun’s body, had been back after months of him not taking care of himself, and Sehun had told him to just drop by whenever it would grow too long again.

He had also told Baekhyun to consider getting himself a job as a model, for his facial features were fit for it, but Baekhyun had rolled his eyes at that. He hadn’t given up his immortality for a shot at being famous. Love, he only wanted love, whatever that took.

Still, he was thankful for the help of a stranger, the kindness that existed in people, and he had gone over to Sehun’s every once in a while after that day. Baekhyun had never been charged with anything, he had been able to come in and leave without needing to pay a single won, but ever since he had started making his own money he left at least something. He couldn’t afford the high prices Sehun charged, he was well-known after all and that meant he could set the bar high, but Sehun never cared for that.

He was probably the first friend Baekhyun had made as a mortal, even before Minseok, although their friendship didn’t really compare any longer.

When Sehun noticed him, which took a while because the boy was so caught up in his work, he paused and then sent him a big grin, “Ah, Baekhyunnie, you’re back.” He turned his eyes back to the hair he was fixing, but he kept smiling, “it’s nice to see you, but like, you kind of look like the world has ended.”

Baekhyun sighed and pushed his chair so it would twirl around, making the world spin around him, “you could say that, I guess. It sort of feels that way right now.”

He didn’t know what it was about being in Sehun’s salon, but he always ended up spilling so many secrets that he had actually wanted to keep inside. Sehun just had a way of making you feel welcome, like no matter what was bothering you, it would be okay to talk about.

“Hmm,” Sehun hummed with a comb between his lips, and he took it out again when he put away his scissors, “work trouble? Love trouble? Both?” he asked as he combed the long locks of the girl in his chair, hair falling down on the floor as he did.

“Love, not work. Although I’m sure that once I get to work and tell Minseok I will be able to say both,” Baekhyun chuckled. He really wasn’t looking forward to telling his best friend what had happened and how he wasn’t going to see Chanyeol again. He would surely get killed, or at least yelled at, and it would take a lot to zone out and ignore it all.

Sehun laughed at that, having met Minseok exactly once, but it had left a lasting impression. “Ouch,” he replied, “that sounds rough. So are you here for a shampoo and rant or a shampoo, rant and cut?” Baekhyun could he hear the laughter in his voice, and he sighed at how predictable he was, which was also exactly why he replied with, “I’m here for a dye.”

“A dye?” Sehun sounded as surprised as he looked, with his eyebrows raised and his head turned to Baekhyun. Never before had Baekhyun sat down with the request of getting his hair dyed. When Sehun had suggested it he had refused straight away, liking his dark hair too much to change it, but now change was exactly what he needed.

His friend then snapped his fingers, beckoning for another employee to take care of blowdrying the girl in his chair so Sehun could move over to Baekhyun. There was this mysterious glint in his eyes when he turned to him, eyeing him as if to decide what he wanted to do to Baekhyun’s hair today, “aish, that heartache must hurt a lot if it’s making you want to dye your hair.”

“You don’t even know,” Baekhyun said while Sehun put the cape into place, getting his things ready. He sat down on a stool and rolled himself behind Baekhyun, already bringing a brush up to his hair to fix the mess it was after the night he had been through. He wondered if Sehun could tell what had happened, but if he did he didn’t mention it.

“So,” his friend asked, staring at Baekhyun’s face through the mirror, “what colour were you thinking of then? Or do you need me to hit you with more suggestions?” He had done so before, advising about twenty different colours that would suit Baekhyun’s complexion, and Baekhyun truly wasn’t ready for another hour of that.

He shook his head, keeping his eyes on himself, and thought of the most rebellious transformation he could go through. What could he do to go from night to day? And as he thought that it just clicked. From dark to light, black to… “Blonde,” he spoke, no doubt left in his voice, “I want to go blonde.”

Sehun’s smile brightened and he clapped his hands together excitedly, ready to take on the challenge, “ah, good choice. Excellent choice, actually. Although I think that an ash colour or a platinum blonde would be best, I’m not sure we can achieve that within one dye. So, let’s see how light we can get this mop of hair. And I’m cutting it while I’m at it, I’m not even asking you for permission.”

Baekhyun chuckled, feeling that much lighter already with how simple and light-hearted their conversation was. Sehun went silent as he got to work, giving Baekhyun time to open up about whatever was going on in his mind if he wanted to, and with his eyes closed and hands in his hair it was easy for Baekhyun to relax completely.

“How’s Junmyeon?” he asked a little off-handedly, wanting to make sure he got to ask before Sehun would fire his questions at him. Junmyeon was Sehun’s beloved boyfriend of three years, even though they had been secretly in love with each other since Sehun had been eighteen. They were the softest couple Baekhyun had ever seen, so unlike Minseok and Kyungsoo, who had a completely different dynamic.

Whenever Sehun and Junmyeon were together they lost whatever spine they had and turned into two puddles of goo with hearteyes that wanted nothing more than to be glued together for life. It was cute, but Baekhyun was glad he didn’t get to see it often, because he would surely get jealous a lot if he did.

“He’s good, almost done with master’s degree. Finally too, ‘cause I’m about ready to cut my fucking dick off with how little attention it has been getting,” Sehun said it so seriously, like he wasn’t joking at all, and it made Baekhyun laugh. His friend was nothing but honest about everything, and it fit his personality so well too.

“Well, trust me, I kind of wish mine had never gotten any attention at all,” Baekhyun chuckled as he opened up about what was bothering him, and Sehun made an understanding sound from behind him before he started lathering Baekhyun’s hair with dye.

“I had a feeling. You’re usually more caring about the way your hair looks, but now it looked like a mess,” Sehun concluded as his hands moved about, and Baekhyun hummed as he closed his eyes to the world again.

He could so clearly remember the feeling of Chanyeol’s arms around him in a last weak attempt to get him to stay, but it was better this way. He had to remind himself that this was all for the best, because if he didn’t then the pain would surely win. “It was a mistake. Not really to me, but to him.”

Sehun was silent for a little bit, focused on Baekhyun’s hair, but Baekhyun knew it was likely the younger boy was thinking of what to say to that. Baekhyun wouldn’t allow him time though, because he knew Sehun quite well by now and he was positive that the reply would either be an apology or a stupid joke, and he wasn’t in the mood for either.

“I guess you could say I was a little crazy about him, and I let myself go too easily. I wasn’t sure about how he felt about me, I never bothered to ask, so it’s really my own fault I got hurt, but it sucks nonetheless. He was my first real crush… in a while,” Baekhyun added, not wanting Sehun to think he was weird for never having had a crush before. He would have a lot more explaining to do if he wanted to be honest about that.

“I bet it was scary,” Sehun replied eventually, sounding surprisingly understanding, “to give yourself like that when you’re not sure whether you’re on the same level as the other.” There was a moment of silence where Baekhyun wanted to nod but couldn’t, and then Sehun went on, “I had that too. I was the one who made a move on Junmyeon, a move where I risked losing my best friend, and well unlike what it may seem like, he refused me at first.”

Baekhyun hadn’t heard about this before. He had thought their love story was just that simple: they met, they fell, realised it a little late but still ended up together. Apparently he had been wrong.

“He had just come out of a relationship when I kissed him. But you know, when you’ve been waiting for so long, kisses just turn into more. And while it was perfect, Junmyeon doubted himself,” Sehun explained, “he worried he only liked being with me because it made him forget all about his previous relationship. He worried he was ruining our friendship by using me as a rebound, which made me worry about being nothing but a rebound. So we called it quits…”

Baekhyun was about to budge in, but Sehun wasn’t done with his story yet. “For a week. We called it quits for a week. That was all it took for both of us to realise how much we wanted each other. One week of not seeing each other was enough of a lead up to the most intense sex I’ve ever had, and it was the only confirmation I needed to know what I felt was real.”

“What are you even saying, Sehun? I know that not everyone is as lucky as you are, you know? No need to rub it in,” Baekhyun honestly wanted to turn around and hit the younger boy for making the carefree mood slip away so easily, but it turned out that the hairdresser was actually trying to make a point.

“I know not everyone is,” he admitted, like he didn’t care he sounded like an egocentrical asshole, “but my point is that if this crush is the real deal, you’ll realise it soon enough. You’ll miss him, you’ll long for whatever you had. And if he has any feelings whatsoever then you’ll know soon enough too. Just you wait. I bet your sweet ass he will try to contact you before the week is over, but you have to be strong then. Wait it out, don’t give in. Take your time to feel whatever the hell you’re feeling and give him that time as well. Then, and only then, you’ll know whether there’s anything there worth holding on to.”

Okay, so Sehun actually had a point. It wasn’t some random bullshit story that allowed him to show off his picture-perfect relationship, it was actually some helpful advice that Baekhyun was certain he could try, even though Sehun was probably wrong. Because firstly, he didn’t see it happening that Chanyeol would reach out to contact him today and secondly, if he did then how could Baekhyun not reply?

“But spill the beans,” Sehun went on, pulling Baekhyun out of his thoughts again, which was good because he had started to panic again. “Was he any good? What happened? Is he well-endowed?” Sehun was asking for the dirty details now, and Baekhyun groaned at the questions because they instantly flung him back in time to last night, to being in that bed with Chanyeol.

“Fine, you’re gross though,” Baekhyun huffed when Sehun whined a little impatiently. “Yeah, he was. Some grinding and a handjob. And well, he’s got length. Like, you don’t expect it when you look at him but he packs.”

Sehun’s laughter filled his ears, and Baekhyun couldn’t help but smile as well. “Look at you all being honest huh, although I’m a bit underwhelmed with how that was all you did. Honestly, you should have just gone all out,” Sehun argued, sounding amused, as if he was grinning. Baekhyun was pretty sure he was, even though he couldn’t see with the piece of foil now covering his forehead and eyes.

“Hey, not fair. He was the one that jumped me, actually. I was asleep when suddenly I felt his hard-on poking me, it wasn’t up to me,” Baekhyun felt himself blush and he shut up abruptly, thinking he had shared more than enough by now. Sehun may have no shame whatsoever, but Baekhyun did. He had had no trouble discussing the filthiest things back when he had been a demon, but that had been different.

Baekhyun had been a completely different person back then, one that had been set on surviving, one that had worn a mask to hide the more sensitive parts of himself. Showing any weaknesses at all would have been lethal to his position and then he wouldn’t have been where he was now. He had played the game well, but now he got to be more like himself and that part of his old life now felt very distant.

“He jumped you instead of the other way around? Oh boy, this is better than I thought. Now I’m a hundred percent sure he will contact you today,” Sehun hollered, pushing himself away from Baekhyun’s chair to fix a weird looking machine over his head. Baekhyun didn’t ask, knew he wouldn’t get an answer while they were still on this topic.

The younger guy opened his mouth again, without a doubt to throw out another smart comment, but they were interrupted by the sound of Baekhyun’s phone. It beeped in his pocket, and as Baekhyun struggled to get it out, he could see the way Sehun’s surprised face had turned into the most self-assured grin he had ever seen on him, “see?! I’m an all-knowing god.”

Baekhyun hoped it was Minseok, hoped that he would get to prove Sehun wrong, but when his screen lit up to show Chanyeol’s name he stared at it in shock. It was a text message, a simple question that wasn’t actually that simple to answer.

                [Chanyeol]:

                **Please tell me you don’t hate me. I don’t want things to end like this…**

He wanted to reply, wanted to say that he didn’t hate Chanyeol and repeat everything he had done before, but Sehun grabbed the phone from his hands and put it in his own pocket before he pointed at Baekhyun sternly, “no. Remember what I said: no answering him. A week, give it a week.”

And so Baekhyun decided to give Sehun’s solution a shot, no matter how much it scared him to think of what he could be ruining if this was the wrong decision to make.

He walked out of the salon an hour later, his hair a honey blonde and his phone in his pocket with Chanyeol’s message unanswered. He walked out feeling stronger than when he had entered it, ready to get to work and face Minseok, ready to see where life would take him next.

 ~

Facing Minseok turned out to be exactly what he had expected it to be, which would have been fine if only his mood hadn’t improved so much since he had left Sehun’s salon. Now, instead of it feeling like something he had prepared for, it was a little bewildering.

He should have been predicting what Minseok would end up saying so that he would have had his arguments ready, but instead he had been daydreaming about more hopeful things.

"What do you mean you ended things?" Minseok's voice was loud and booming once he had pulled Baekhyun apart to finally talk to him about what had happened after he had left with Kyungsoo. The loudness of his voice was making Baekhyun shrink in on himself, but his friend didn’t seem to notice, "after we spent days continuously begging Chanyeol to show up, wanting to make your grumpy ass a little happier, you go and end it all?" 

It was explosive, the way Minseok was going off at him, his face was going red with how worked up he was and quite frankly it was a little scary. "Honestly,” he ranted on, “I've seen your face light up whenever he sends you a message and seeing you actually with him confirmed it all: you like him. It's obvious you do, yet you make these fucking idiotic mistakes. I don't get why you two can't just confess and deal with whatever shit you find along the way together. That's what Kyungsoo and I did and we're fine." 

Minseok had started pacing halfway through his story and he had thrown up his hands into the air in frustration more than once. He looked a little scary, fit for someone like Kyungsoo, and for the first time since they met, Baekhyun understood what had made them fall for each other.

His friend was a worthy competitor against Kyungsoo's demonic parts, and although Baekhyun had seen a lot of shit going on in hell, he had never been a little scared, not the way he was now. Honestly, Minseok was only a mere mortal, but he managed to almost burst a vein in his forehead with the way he was blowing up, and Baekhyun couldn't deny that it was impressive. And frightening, sure, that too.

"I cannot fucking believe you," Minseok just kept going, "we leave you two and you're both all smiles, nothing wrong, and you show up here now not even twenty four hours later telling me you won't see him again?! On top of that your hair is blonde and you're acting like it is all no big deal at all! Have you lost your mind? What did that fucking flu do to you, because you ought to have some sort of brain damage?!" 

Finally his friend took a breather, his hands pressed to his face as if he didn't know what else to do with Baekhyun's idiocy, and Baekhyun himself truly felt like a child that had been scolded. He wanted to make Minseok understand, but he knew that would prove difficult. He wouldn’t get it unless Baekhyun would tell him the truth, which he had kind of already done the night before when Minseok had told him to do exactly what he then did.

"We fucked up, alright? It's not like I just fucking decided this, Minseok. It wasn't out of the blue, it was thought through," he swore it, his voice just as angry and passionate as Minseok's had been. "I ended up going home with him and couldn't leave because of the snow, and then in the middle of the night he crawled into bed with me and-," he stopped mid-sentence as his throat closed up unexpectedly and he was unable to finish, but it was enough to make Minseok's head shoot up.

Their eyes met and Baekhyun could see the question his friend was asking him without using actual words, a question to which he shook his head. "Not that far," he commented, finding how taking a breath helped a lot, "anyway, it inevitably led to a talk and then he said... he thought of _him_ , Minseok. He had thought of Jaehyun, and I realised how no matter what I’ll do, this is doomed to fail. It will never be me he sees, but always him. It will always be Jaehyun." 

Minseok was the one shaking his head now, as if he refused to believe what Baekhyun was thinking, but there were no real arguments thrown back at Baekhyun. None but a weak, "no. No, you just have to try. How can you know if you don't try?" But it was pointless, because Minseok knew about how he had tried, how for a full week they had been talking solely via text. It should have meant something. It should have made a difference, but it didn't.

So he settled on telling Minseok about the tiny sliver of hope he still had, just to give him the sense that Baekhyun hadn’t just given up. He was holding on to the unlikely chance that Chanyeol would realise he wanted Baekhyun, not Jaehyun.

"Sehun told me about him and Junmyeon, about what brought them together, and I'm going to try that,” he looked at his folded hands, not wanting to look at Minseok’s face in fear of receiving more fury. “I'll wait for one whole week to see if anything happens. I won't answer his messages, nothing. If we can both live with it then we'll be fine," Baekhyun argued, "and if we don't... then I'll see wherever it takes us. But promise me you won't interfere this time, the way you did yesterday." 

Baekhyun could tell how difficult it was for Minseok to promise him this. He knew that his boss had the tendency to meddle in other people's business, always with the best intentions, but still. Sometimes good intentions led to catastrophic outcomes, and for all Baekhyun knew that was what had happened the night before. 

Minseok tapped his foot as he bit down on his lower lip, clearly torn up about it. He obviously wanted to trust Baekhyun, but he also knew how Baekhyun was good at talking bullshit. It wouldn't be the first time Baekhyun asked Minseok to trust him only for himself to break that promise.

Yet, Minseok was his friend, someone that cared for him, and he would never force anything on Baekhyun ever. "Fine, whatever. I hope you're right about this… And if you're not then I hope that you make up your mind before it really is too late," Minseok huffed, not liking how he had to surrender, and rather than admitting his defeat he stomped off right after he was done talking. Baekhyun knew that he wouldn't allow the subject to be brought up again either. 

It was alright though, because at least he had managed to make his friend stop yelling, at least Minseok wasn’t angry anymore. As he was left behind to get ready for his shift, he felt slightly more positive about it all. He was being given the chance to go about this the way he wanted to, to try and fix things on his own or let it go on his own.

Now the only question was: which one would it be?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SEHUN ^^ Anyway, buckle up, cause here we gooooooo


	17. Patience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Chanyeol]:  
> Why are you ignoring me?  
> Please, you can’t just throw me out of your life like that, it’s not fair.  
> What did you really expect me to say, Baekhyun? That you don’t remind me of Jaehyun, when you’re in his damn body?  
> Please.  
> Okay, fine. I give up. That’s it then.

 

When Baekhyun woke up around noon and turned over in his bed, he saw his phone on the bedside table, his screen lit up as a message had just come in. Still half-asleep, Baekhyun needed a minute to gather himself before he reached out for the glowing device next to him.

He stretched, yawning loudly and then rubbed his eyes a few times before he dropped his hand so it would fall out of bed. After a few attempts of trying to find his phone without looking, he was able to snatch the thing and bring it up to his face, the bright light of the screen making his eyes squint.

He saw there was actually more than one notification. The last incoming one, which he had received only a minute ago, was a text message from Sehun. Being the nosy little shit he was, he wanted to know if anything new had happened and Baekhyun rolled his eyes at it and decided not to answer until he had something better to say than ‘no’.

[Oh Sehunnie]:

**Well? Has he texted again already?**

**Don’t leave me hanging dude, I want all the details.**

He closed the conversation and opened the next, realising a little too late which conversation it was. Now there was another message that would be left on read.

Not only that, but now Baekhyun would have to go back and answer Sehun too.

[Chanyeol]:

**Baekhyun, please…**

**I can’t sleep in this bed knowing it’s what drove you away.**

**Tell me I can make things right again and I will.**

The messages affected him, of course they did. Baekhyun really wanted nothing more than to reach out, to try and see if there was anything that they could do to fix this. He knew he would try again and again, as many times as Chanyeol would give him. He’d take every chance given.

Even if his heart would break again and again, he’d still do it, because there was something about him. There was something about Chanyeol that he just couldn’t wash away. Something that he couldn’t drink away, or sing away or think away for that matter.

There was nothing he could do to erase the other from his mind, to wipe every fingerprint he had left on Baekhyun’s heart. Not even Jaehyun’s, but Baekhyun’s.

The memory of them walking in the snow, the innocent texting and the way Chanyeol had so carefully wrapped the bandages around his wounded hand were so clear in his mind. He felt warmth when he thought of those, he felt like there had been hope in the way they had interacted then, but Baekhyun’s heart was too unsure and his mind was too toxic, and all he could think was that if he hadn’t had Jaehyun’s face then none of those memories would have been made.

Part of him, though, part of him hoped that there was more to it than that. That part of him was what had made him consider Sehun’s suggestion in the first place. It was what had made him hold on rather than completely let go. Because maybe it was true that those things had only happened because he had Jaehyun’s face. Maybe their being this close so soon was only because of the person that linked them, but maybe that wasn’t all.

Baekhyun was very good at assuming what others thought and felt, all for the sake of not getting hurt. He had decided Chanyeol only kissed him that night because of Jaehyun and that every smile he had sent Baekhyun’s way along with every brief touch they had shared was because of _him_ , but there were actually a few things that could possibly be used as counterarguments to that.

For one, Chanyeol had been the one to suggest texting, not Baekhyun. He had been the one to think of ways to get to know who Baekhyun was without seeing him, as if he knew that if they did, Baekhyun would think he was only interested in Jaehyun. That exact reason could have been the thing that had held Chanyeol back from saying ‘yes’ to the karaoke invitation for so long, and maybe, like Baekhyun, he had simply been too weak to say no.

That wasn’t the only thing though, because there was another argument that could be used against Baekhyun’s darkest thoughts. The worst thing he could think of was how everything Chanyeol had done with him had only been part of a plan to get Jaehyun back, but that seemed very unlikely, because everything about Chanyeol’s words and actions screamed he was trying to move on. In fact, it screamed that he had already been moving on for a while.

Chanyeol had accepted it quite quickly when Baekhyun had told him Jaehyun would never be back. Sure, he had cried because it must have hurt to hear, it was impossible for it to not have been a shock to know that his dream could no longer be reality, but that had been it. Chanyeol’s texts had been full of hope for the future. There had been two missing toothbrushes before Baekhyun became the third, and Chanyeol was moving on. Right?

But even though those were all very powerful arguments, they weren’t actually the most important one, because the thing that made Baekhyun doubt about his own assumptions the most was the fact that no matter what, no matter where they had been, Chanyeol had always referred to him as Baekhyun.

He hadn’t slipped up once, had never started with ‘Jae-‘ only to fix his mistake. Always, from the moment he had stood at Baekhyun’s door ready to listen to his story, he had always called him Baekhyun. Jaehyun had been mentioned as ‘he’ or ‘him’ or just that: ‘Jaehyun’.

And Chanyeol truly would have to be a very good actor to not make mistakes if the only person on his mind had been Jaehyun, and although Baekhyun found it hard to believe what that meant, he had to at least consider how it could be true that Chanyeol actually thought about him. That no matter how small or big that part was, Baekhyun had been on Chanyeol’s mind just like the other had been on his.

It didn’t exactly make sense, none of it did, and that’s what Baekhyun hated about being human. Once he had longed for it, the mix of emotions, but that had been before he had realised how messy things could become. His life as an angel, as well as his life as a demon, had been very black and white. Things had been one thing or the other and it had always been very easy to distinguish which was which. There hadn’t ever been a doubt about anything. You were either in love or you were not, either you were the darkness or nothing at all, and Baekhyun missed that at times.

But that was the thing about humans; they cannot live alone.

As an angel Baekhyun had had a family, his mother and father, a brother too, but there was nothing to tie them together except for the fact that he wouldn’t have existed without them. More than a family, they had been angels, and so his mother had had her own mortals to take care of, as had his father and his brother. It was why the moment he fell, he knew he wouldn’t be missed. The love that angels possessed was only meant for mortals, not family.

Then, once he had settled as a demon, Baekhyun had been even more alone. The fact that he had been a fallen one had made him weak as a demon, for his heart had never been as dark as that of those around him, but he had been good at pretending. And because he had longed for some type of revenge, he had been more powerful than any true blood demon out there.

Every action, every decision he had made as a demon had been made while thinking ‘what would show heaven the middle finger the most?’. It could have been possible that no one up in heaven had cared enough about him to keep an eye on him, but it could have also been imaginable that someone had been watching him. He hoped that if that had been the case they would have been able to report that no matter where he was, Baekhyun was able to take care of himself very well.

Tae-ho had been so similar to him, the only soul in hell he had been able to warm up to. Tae-ho had made it by working his ass off as well, pretending to be much less innocent than he actually was, in the same way Baekhyun had.

He was a fairly young soul, but a determined one too. The night Baekhyun had found him, though, had been a night where Tae-ho had been broken to the point where he was actually sitting in a corner with tear stained cheeks, sobbing into the air like none of it mattered any longer, and that had been all it took for Baekhyun to know they’d get along.

He kind of missed Tae-ho now. He missed how easy it had been to be with the younger, how Baekhyun hadn’t ever needed to give anything of himself away to receive such affection in return. Tae-ho had always been easy to please, most demons had a tendency to be, and so whenever Tae-ho had asked him about anything personal, Baekhyun had just taken off his shirt and it would have all been forgotten, washed away by desire.

They had had fun together and the sex had been good, and in a way that had been enough to live with. It could have been enough, if it hadn’t been for how Baekhyun had always wanted more. He was greedy like that, wanting to experience true love rather than a stable friends-with-benefits sort of relationship.

He had known how difficult it would be to get to that point, yet he had never given up, and now that he had finally gotten what he had wanted for so long, he longed for the ease with which he had lived as a demon.

Humans who were alone sometimes actually died from loneliness. No human could survive being truly alone, not the way Baekhyun had felt both after his fall as an angel as well as his first month as a mortal. There was such a sadness in being completely and utterly alone, with no one to talk to and no one to notice you, but in a way it had been easier to deal with than the situation Baekhyun was in now.

Because humans needed each other to breathe, to feel happiness and share love, but along with that came the complications of feelings, and none of those were simple. Absolutely nothing about being in love was easy at all, because humans were made up of a thousand layers that when combined together were so difficult to read.

There was no sign that told Baekhyun whether this mortal, his Chanyeol, was open to love. Nothing that told him whether his heart was already being protected by another, and Baekhyun hated that. It made him want to be an angel again, because then he’d know. One glance and he’d know, but he wasn’t an angel anymore and to long for that time meant that he would have to give up on the life he had built for himself, which he wasn’t willing to do.

Baekhyun sighed then, hating how far his thoughts had taken him, and he shook himself out of it when he opened up Sehun’s message to type a quick reply.

[Baekhyun]:

**Received a second text. Have not yet replied. Stop stalking me, creep.**

He briefly smiled at his own comment before he closed the conversation and let himself be redirected to the final notification, which he regretted immediately.

He had been tagged in a post by Minseok, one with pictures from their night out and the caption ‘double date night with Kyungsoo and two idiots’. The pictures were cute and most of the ones that were there he could remember being taken, but there was one he didn’t remember at all.

To his horror, Kyungsoo had liked the post his boyfriend had made and had actually tagged Chanyeol, his Park Chanyeol, underneath the picture of him and Baekhyun singing a song together. Their backs were turned to the camera, but Baekhyun was thankful for that, because the picture was already intimate enough as it was, he didn’t need to see their faces up close as well.

In the picture he was standing way too closely to Chanyeol, his head turned slightly to look at the taller boy, his face full of admiration that he hoped only he was able to detect. Chanyeol had his face turned slightly to the side as well, which showed a bit of his profile, but unlike Baekhyun’s, his eyes were closed as he lost himself in his rap part.

It was a cute picture, one that made Baekhyun’s heart hurt as he thought of how he had pushed Chanyeol aside and how from now on they wouldn’t ever take such pictures again. If Sehun’s plan was unsuccessful, of course.

Kyungsoo had only tagged Chanyeol, he hadn’t written anything else in his comment, but Baekhyun’s heart jumped when he saw there was a comment underneath it, written by Park Chanyeol in reply.

[Park Chanyeol]:

**@Kyungsooooo we were killing it, just admit it! ^^**

Baekhyun hadn’t known they were friends, hadn’t realised how quickly Chanyeol had become a part of not only his life, but his friends’ lives as well. Kyungsoo, who had needed more than a month to actually warm up to him, had let in Chanyeol after only one night out together.

It had to be Minseok’s doing, there was no other way, or else Baekhyun would kill Kyungsoo the next time he saw him.

Either way he stared at the interaction, realising that his plan to push Chanyeol away was doomed to fail now no matter what. Every thought he had had before had been in vain, because even if Baekhyun somehow found the strength to get rid of the boy, to rip him out of his life the way he would rip off a band-aid, the tall idiot still wouldn’t completely be gone.

Because he was no longer just tied to Baekhyun, he was tied to Minseok and Kyungsoo too, and now the only way for Baekhyun to really get away from Chanyeol’s existence was by leaving Minseok and Kyungsoo behind as well, and he would never. The thought alone made him distraught.

No matter what way Baekhyun would play it, he would lose. The outcome was already right in front of him, staring him in the face. He knew he’d see Chanyeol again, knew that by now the guy was as much a part of his life as Minseok and Kyungsoo were, and he only hoped that their relationship wouldn’t be tense and awkward once Chanyeol would come to realise that as well.

He hoped that Sehun’s plan would work still, that Chanyeol would spend time alone thinking about what he wanted, and that he’d come to Baekhyun with a clear answer to what he felt, an answer that Baekhyun could believe. He knew that would be difficult, but he made the promise to himself to try and believe whatever Chanyeol would tell him once the time was there.

It was just up to Chanyeol to actually be honest.

~

[Chanyeol]:

**Why are you ignoring me?**

**Please, you can’t just throw me out of your life like that, it’s not fair.**

**What did you really expect me to say, Baekhyun? That you don’t remind me of Jaehyun, when you’re in his damn body?**

**Please.**

**Okay, fine. I give up. That’s it then.**

**~**

Baekhyun hadn’t heard of Chanyeol after that message, which he had gotten two days ago, and although he knew it was for the best it still made him sick to his stomach to realise Chanyeol had accepted their fate.

Baekhyun had finally done it, he had finally managed to push him away then. No matter how hard the tiny part of his brain that had believed in a second chance had yelled at Baekhyun to reply, he hadn’t, and now it all felt like shit.

Sehun had said that this was nothing but a good thing, that Chanyeol would actually try to let go now. He had said that by trying to live without Baekhyun, Chanyeol would either find out that he could or that he couldn’t, with their bets placed on the latter option.

According to Sehun, now was the time where Baekhyun had to wait for Chanyeol to make up his mind while he made up his own, but that wasn’t as easy as the hairdresser had made it seem. He was actually scared to death that Chanyeol would realise he could easily live without Baekhyun, or well, sort of without Jaehyun too, because that was exactly the way things had been like for the past year for him.

He was scared because Chanyeol could actually walk away without a care in the world, all while Baekhyun was coming to the realisation that he wanted Chanyeol to want him. In the time Baekhyun took to make up his mind he got to feel how badly his heart ached for Chanyeol, and how some of that had to be his own feelings rather than Jaehyun’s, the way he had thought for so long.

Essentially, Baekhyun had come to the conclusion that even if the feelings that he could no longer ignore were only there because of Jaehyun, he didn’t care, because Jaehyun no longer existed. Jaehyun was dead, gone forever, and so Baekhyun had every right to feel whatever the hell he was feeling now. No matter if they were his feelings or not, they were there, they made him happy and they were there to stay.

~

A day before the week that Baekhyun had set for himself would come to an end, Minseok kept sending him worried glances throughout his whole shift. His friend was one of the few that knew how they were close to hitting the last 24 hours of Sehun’s challenge, and it was a little stupid how much they both wanted to believe it would work when clearly, Chanyeol hadn’t contacted him any more since that final message that had promised he would move on.

“Maybe you should screw Sehun’s fucked up method,” Minseok said as he sipped from his drink, non-alcoholic of course seen as they were still working, even if the bar had died down some. It was that time of the month where people were running out of money, and with Christmas fast approaching not many tourists were around either.

“What?” Baekhyun asked as he chewed on the straw in his own drink, staring at the blue liquid in his glass. “How could I possibly do that?” He snorted lightly, rolling his eyes at his best friend. It was nice to sit down with him for a bit, to not fight and be so tense, something they had been unnecessarily often now that his secret was out in the open. Or maybe it had been the whole Chanyeol thing that had got them to bicker more, that was probable as well.

“Text him back, give him something to make him realise he misses you. Who knows, what if that’s what would make him realise he really can’t go without you? Now you’re giving him silence and a chance to move on, isn’t that weird?” Minseok questioned, his eyebrows coming together as he stared into nothingness, lost in thought.

Baekhyun played with his straw again, watching the ice cubes dance around in his drink as he did, and he sighed eventually, “but Sehun said-“ which only got cut off by a stern sounding, “Sehun can suck my dick. Sehun has a high school sweetheart, he has a softie boyfriend. The two of them are nothing like you and Chanyeol and they had none of the complications you have, how can they be compared?”

The words made sense, and they were strong enough to make Baekhyun doubt himself and his decision to stay quiet, and not for the first time either. Should he have texted back already? Should he text back now? Should he show a sign of how he really didn’t want Chanyeol to give up, even if that made him look that much weaker if Chanyeol decided to stay away regardless?

God, it was so complicated. This whole game was complicated.

“What could I say, though?” Baekhyun groaned as he dropped his head on his arm, thinking back to Chanyeol’s final words. Was there anything he could say without giving too much of himself away? He honestly was at a loss, but maybe Minseok had ideas. He was the one that had suggested it after all.

His boss stayed very quiet though, and Baekhyun was already kind of at the point of giving up when Minseok finally opened his mouth, “maybe something about how you don’t want to be second place? That sort of thing kind of shows that you do care, but that you’re not willing to take him back unless you’re the only one he wants?”

Baekhyun stayed silent as he thought of that, and he blinked at how perfect it actually was. First of all because it was the whole point Baekhyun had been trying to make, but also because of what Minseok had said: it was the perfect thing to say in a teasing matter, to make sure Chanyeol wouldn’t fully run away, but to make him reconsider without Baekhyun having to beg for it.

“You’re right, that could be exactly what could catch his attention again,” Baekhyun agreed when he sat himself up so he could get his phone from his back pocket. He swiped the screen, easily finding Chanyeol’s conversation in the list of his friends, and he stared at the words that had been haunting him for the past few days now.

It was now or never, he knew it was, and so he typed. And backspaced. And typed again. Until the words felt like they fit, until there was no other meaning possible than the one the words suggested, and after Minseok nodded to show his approval, Baekhyun pressed send.

[Baekhyun]:

**Anything. Anything that would have stopped me from feeling like I was a second choice. That I’m nothing but a convenient replacement of the person you lost.**

~

Chanyeol didn’t reply. That final day, which was his day off, Baekhyun spent every minute of every hour checking his phone to see if maybe he had received an answer. It never came.

He had read it, Chanyeol had read the words Baekhyun had sent him, but he hadn’t replied. In all honesty, it was only fair. Baekhyun was getting a taste of his own medicine, and he realised now that he had been really damn stupid to listen to Sehun and his idiotic and childish idea. How could he have thought that someone with the most carefree relationship could give him advice about the dump he was in?

He shouldn’t have listened, he should have let Chanyeol explain himself straight away, before the guy had lost his interest in Baekhyun. Maybe if he had then the outcome would have still been the same, he wasn’t sure, but at least he wouldn’t have to deal with the regret he felt now.

It appeared it was too late, that they had had their chance and they had ruined it. Baekhyun’s first crush, the tiny bud of green that had sprouted from underneath the ground, watered and loved by Chanyeol, it was dying, withering in his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh you're gonna have to wait a full week for chapter 18 *cough*[M] rated*cough*  
> causeeee I will be gone on holiday this week!  
> Enjoy the torture my loves <3


	18. ... Watch It Grow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was there, standing inches away from Baekhyun, one week after the night Baekhyun stayed over at his place, only hours before Baekhyun would have given up on him, and Sehun had been right. Because Chanyeol, he came with an answer to Baekhyun’s question.

~

 

A loud and continuous knocking disturbed Baekhyun from his sleep. When he sat himself up, confused about what was going on and not sure which day it was, he let the screen of his phone light up to see it was only a little past midnight and that no one had called or texted him saying they were going to drop by.

Before Baekhyun had gathered himself enough to get his brain to work, the knocking stopped. However it was barely for a few seconds, because then the sound returned, being possibly louder than before. It sounded as if someone was trying to knock the door out of its frame, and the urgency of it woke Baekhyun up enough to wonder if maybe the building was on fire and someone was trying to warn him. It had to be an emergency, why else would someone be this persistent this late at night?

Driven by the thought that he could be in danger, Baekhyun rushed over to his front door, fingers stumbling a little on the lock as he felt hurried by the knocking which by now was rather painful to his eardrums. “Yeah, yeah, hold on!” He yelled, hoping the noise would stop, and thankfully it did.

Silence fell just as Baekhyun’s lock clicked and then he got to throw the door open, ready to hear about whatever the hell was going on. It never came though, because all that rang through the air was the heavy silence that fell as Baekhyun’s eyes landed on Chanyeol’s face. The world stopped turning and the air around him went vacuum, leaving him without oxygen as he stared.

Chanyeol was heaving, as if he was out of breath from running up the stairs, and he looked like shit. His eyes were dark and a little puffy, like he hadn’t slept much at all, and his hair wasn’t fixed in its usual neatness. He looked rough, the way Baekhyun had expected him to after the news of Jaehyun’s death had hit, but instead he looked like this now.

One of Chanyeol’s hands was holding on to a basket filled with stuff that Baekhyun really had no time to check out, because the taller wasted no more time standing out there in the cold hallway. Baekhyun’s crush pushed himself past the frozen body in the doorway and into the apartment, while Baekhyun stayed standing there with his eyes on the now-empty hallway, the door in his hand.

He was vaguely aware of Chanyeol putting the basket down, could hear the sound of glass moving about, but before he could turn to look what was going on, a hand came up over his on the door. Surprised at the touch, Baekhyun pulled back and twirled around, just as Chanyeol’s hand swung the door shut behind them.

Baekhyun listened to it fall shut, still too out of it to really notice anything but the way they were standing so close together, but whereas he probably looked very unsure and questioning, Chanyeol seemed anything but. He towered over the shorter with a determination in his eyes that made him look as if he was on fire.

He was there, standing inches away from Baekhyun, one week after the night Baekhyun stayed over at his place, only hours before Baekhyun would have given up on him, and Sehun had been right. Because Chanyeol, he came with an answer to Baekhyun’s question. Chanyeol, he had come with a purpose, had made up his mind after days of not being in touch, and that in itself brought on relief, but that relief only grew when Baekhyun realised what the answer actually was.

Because the second Chanyeol’s hands came up and cradled Baekhyun’s head in his hands, the second he dipped down and pressed their lips together in a rough and desperate kiss, Baekhyun knew what this would lead to. He knew, and he wanted to cry out in gratefulness.

Chanyeol was anything but gentle, pressing Baekhyun back into the wooden surface behind them as they kissed. His lips were firm against Baekhyun’s, kissing his intentions into the other’s mouth, and Baekhyun shivered involuntarily. It was breath-taking, literally breath-taking, and Baekhyun only broke the touch when he actually had to gasp for air.

The way Chanyeol’s thumbs brushed over his cheekbones as he gave Baekhyun room to breathe made him melt, his knees weak as his eyes fell shut, but a second later the touch was gone again. Baekhyun reopened his eyes as he felt the hands leave his skin, but Chanyeol was anything but stepping away from him.

The taller had placed his hands next to Baekhyun’s head, caging him in like that, and he stepped just a tiny bit closer, as if to make sure Baekhyun wouldn’t run this time. Because boy, had he been running from this. Baekhyun knew he had done anything in his might to run from the man in front of him, but it was inevitable the way he ended up there.

“Listen,” Chanyeol started, his forehead so close it was almost resting against Baekhyun’s, “I’ve been thinking. I’ve been thinking a lot.” He was still out of breath but his voice was gorgeously strong and certain, making Baekhyun forget everything else, “I haven’t been able to sleep in days. I just can’t get you out of my head no matter what I try. I mean, I- I went to work and sang my kids songs that reminded me of you and I taught them how to draw hearts and... I’ve been going crazy, Baekhyun.”

He sounded desperate, like he was begging for Baekhyun to believe him, and that was the thing. It wasn’t that Baekhyun didn’t believe him. It wasn’t that he thought Chanyeol had been lying all this time, did he not know that? That wasn’t the point he had been trying to make.

Baekhyun opened his mouth, ready to repeat how none of this had ever been about him not believing what Chanyeol was saying, it was about how things would never work if they’d keep trailing back to the memory of Jaehyun. That was it. But Chanyeol would have none of it.

The taller placed one of his hands over Baekhyun’s mouth, conveniently blocking whatever words he had wanted to say, “hear me out, okay? Please, just hear me out.” Chanyeol was begging him again, and Baekhyun couldn’t do much more than nod and allow him to go on.

As Chanyeol moved his hand back to the door he forced himself to look into Baekhyun’s eyes, making sure the other was looking back at him, and he swallowed visibly before he picked back up, “I know how you worry about me thinking you’re Jaehyun and that you think I don’t care about you, but about him. I understand it too, I probably would have been the same, but the thing is that you don’t know anything about me and Jaehyun. You don’t know what our relationship was like, so let me tell you.”

They were still standing there, both frozen, and Baekhyun wanted so badly to reach out and say something, to touch Chanyeol, but he couldn’t. He had to listen, he had to decide whether Chanyeol truly felt something for him, and as promised to himself, he had to believe him.

“Jaehyun and I, we were trying to weather this storm that our relationship had ended up in, like- a damn hurricane, okay? We had always been very intense, either things were perfect or they were absolutely terrible. There was no in between for us, there just wasn’t,” Chanyeol explained, hurting Baekhyun with words of his past relationship. Because although there may have been times where things were terrible, there had been times where Jaehyun had been perfect regardless of those.

“But you can only fix something that many times before it becomes irrepairable, and I knew we were close to breaking things off. But it was then, however, that Jaehyun disappeared,” Chanyeol paused, suggesting how the disappearance had changed things, and Baekhyun let him take a moment to compose himself as the taller remembered that time.

“I’m nothing but persistent, Baekhyun. When I set my mind to something I will do whatever I can to get it done, and I was so set on fixing our relationship, but then he left. He just picked up and left, never looking back, and I was so lost,” Chanyeol explained, his expression now a little pained. “If he would have broken up with me, if he would have told me he no longer loved me, maybe I could have given up, but he hadn’t.”

Chanyeol sighed, shaking his head in such a way that his hair fell over his forehead, making him look cute and soft, and Baekhyun wanted to kiss him. “He left without telling me, without telling his family, and that didn’t sit right with me. I couldn’t imagine Jaehyun leaving them behind. Me, maybe, but not his family. So I did the only thing that felt right to me: I started looking for him.”

Finally, Chanyeol let his forehead touch Baekhyun’s, bringing himself a little closer, and Baekhyun’s heart immediately responded to it. He could feel the taller boy’s breath against his mouth and chin, could hear him breathe with his lips slightly parted, and they stood like that for a moment.

Baekhyun never opened his mouth because he knew this wasn’t all there was to say, he knew Chanyeol wasn’t done explaining himself, but he did dare to bring up a hand to rest on Chanyeol’s waist. He could feel the heavy inhaling and exhaling beneath his fingers, and when Chanyeol didn’t push him away he brought up his other hand as well.

“You may think we were perfect, you may think all I want is for Jaehyun to return, but that’s not true. I only wanted some peace of mind, which you gave me. I think I actually moved on a while ago. If I hadn’t, do you really think I would have let other people spend the night at my place?” Chanyeol asked Baekhyun, wanting to know, “do you really think I’d cheat if my heart still belonged to Jaehyun? I’m not like that, Baekhyun. I swear.”

Baekhyun nodded, making Chanyeol’s forehead move along with his, stating that he understood and that he trusted Chanyeol to be honest with him. It seemed to be exactly what the other needed, because Baekhyun could feel the way his breathing slowed down slightly, as if he was finally relaxing now that the flood of thoughts had poured out. Or, well, almost all of it.

“And then came you. You, who looked so much like him, who was so tirelessly telling me off and who got me so curious to find out more,” Chanyeol’s voice was even softer than before, as if he was trying to hold back a smile, “you, who likes romantic things, who knows hapkido and can say ‘I love you’ in countless languages.”

Those words, they made Baekhyun feel something he hadn’t felt before. Like this strange sensation in his body that made his stomach twist in anticipation of what else Chanyeol would say about him. He could feel their noses pressed together now, bringing the taller that much closer to him, and Baekhyun worried maybe he’d throw up or scream at the intensity of it all, but thankfully he managed.

“I got to meet someone who blushes so easily and who gets shy over everything, but who at the same time can be so flirty over text. Someone who I know has a darker side I have yet to see, who can grab any asshole by the balls and have them give in to him,” Chanyeol snickered, “sorry, Minseok told me that ‘cause I came to the bar first? He told me it was your night off and he started telling me all these stories and- anyway, just, that’s you. And I think that’s fucking hot.”

Baekhyun couldn’t help but laugh at how random that sounded, how after all the loving things Chanyeol had said he could just throw out something so bright, and Chanyeol laughed along with him. It lightened the mood some, made Baekhyun feel a little less dizzy, and when the laughter faded again, Chanyeol was ever as serious.

“You’re bright. You have the presence to fill a room, and you’re bold and imposing as well as kind and thoughtful. You keep surprising me, in the most positive ways, and it makes me wonder ‘what’s next’ every time that I see you. Baek, you dress like you own the world and your eyes are absolutely striking when they’re lined in black, and I want to drop myself at your feet and surrender,” Chanyeol summed it all up, and Baekhyun could feel how the hands next to his head had moved down enough to rest on his shoulders.

The air was less tense, even though Baekhyun was still frozen in place, and Chanyeol pulled himself away slightly to make sure he could look into the other’s eyes again. “I don’t want to compare,” he told Baekhyun, “I know that won’t help, but if I would, then Baekhyun… you’re everything he wasn’t. You’re excitement, you’re tenderness and grace all in one, and I can’t help but fall for it.”

The room went fully silent then, their playful laughter from before and the way Baekhyun’s stomach had been flipping again, all of it stopped when Chanyeol said those final words. Falling? Chanyeol was falling for him? He couldn’t have heard that right, could he?

Chanyeol’s right hand moved, his index finger slowly trailing down Baekhyun’s jaw, and his eyes followed the move, “yes, you have his face and yeah, that will probably be awkward for another while,” he spoke again, “but Baekhyun, I like you. I do, I really like you.”

The confession made warmth rush up Baekhyun’s face to his cheeks, as if his blood wanted to be where Chanyeol was touching him, where Chanyeol’s eyes were trained on him.

“The question is,” Chanyeol spoke bit by bit, eyeing Baekhyun’s reaction, “are you forever going to doubt my intentions because I used to date someone with the same body, or are you going to try and forget that and give us a chance? Or, better worded: are you going to push me away or let me kiss you again?”

If breathing had been hard before, it was damn near impossible now with the offer on display. Chanyeol was asking him to give them a chance. Them, as in Baekhyun&Chanyeol, them together. Fuck, fuck, Baekhyun honestly couldn’t breathe. This was everything he had been dreaming of, this was a confession, this was someone with feelings for him, and it was spectacular.

It was as if his whole body was electric, as if just the slightest touch of Chanyeol would light him on fire, but a good kind of fire. A fire that warmed him to his toes, his entire core alive as the loaded sparks surged through his veins, and that was exactly what it felt like when Chanyeol had enough of the silence and finally kissed him again.

Baekhyun forgot everything that wasn’t Chanyeol and, luckily, his body managed to respond before his brain had the time to catch up.

He let his arms curl around Chanyeol’s waist, tugging their bodies closer as the taller held Baekhyun’s face in his hands again. It started off so soft, like the love that had been in Chanyeol’s words, but Baekhyun was done with that. They could check off the romance, could strike out the talking and move on to what came after.

The fire had spread through Baekhyun’s body at a rapid speed and now all he wanted was to lose the electricity. So he let go, pushing Chanyeol away slightly to make sure the taller would release his grip on Baekhyun’s face, and he made use of the confusion on the other’s face to change their positions.

Chanyeol was still wearing his winter coat after all, and that just wouldn’t do. Luckily for Baekhyun the taller had already taken off his scarf and unbuttoned his coat on the way up to his apartment, and now all that was left was for Baekhyun to rid him of it.

When his hands hit Chanyeol’s chest, trialing up to his shoulders, the confusion and fear disappeared from the younger boy’s face as quickly as they had clouded it. He helped Baekhyun shake off the heavy coat from his shoulders and after it dropped to the floor they let it be. It wasn’t as if Chanyeol would be leaving soon anyway.

Baekhyun’s fingers found the collar of the taller boy’s shirt and he tugged on it while he walked himself backwards. He knew there were only a few steps before his back would hit the kitchenette and when he was about to reach it, Chanyeol wasted no time in lifting the shorter up so he could sit on the countertop.

Their lips were still locked, but Baekhyun’s mind was on other things than the kiss they were sharing. His hands skilfully worked open button after button, revealing more and more skin that Baekhyun let himself appreciate while he pulled back for another breath of air.

The stark contrast of the white against Chanyeol’s skin was beautiful and Baekhyun let his fingers trace over the softness of his crush’s chest just as he felt one hand at his back. The touch was scorching him even through the fabric, and luckily Chanyeol didn’t wait very long before he moved his hand again, working Baekhyun’s shirt up enough to press fingertips to the dips at the end of Baekhyun’s spine.

Of course Chanyeol knew just how to touch him, seen as for him this wasn’t the first time discovering Baekhyun’s body, but somehow right now all he could think of was how nice it was. It was nice because now Baekhyun wouldn’t have to worry about what Chanyeol would think of his body, he already knew.

As he turned his head to let his neck be kissed, his eyes fell on the basket Chanyeol had brought in with him, and through his gasps he asked, “what’s in there?” even though it ruined the rush they had been in. The buzz was still there under his skin, but his attention had been drawn elsewhere.

Chanyeol hummed against the shell of his ear, not needing to look at the basket to know what was inside of it, and his smile was audible in his voice as he told Baekhyun, “Things you like, I guess? I bought you red carnations to apologise, action movies to watch if you’d let me stay and a bottle of wine in case you’d throw me out.”

It was enough to make Baekhyun’s heart flutter in his chest again, and this time it was nice to see how he wasn’t the only romantic. However, unlike before, now he didn’t feel the blush rush up to his face the way it usually would. All he felt was that desire pooling in his gut, the same he had felt the week before when Chanyeol had crawled into bed with him.

The basket with presents made him want to kiss Chanyeol a thousand times, and so he did. He pressed their mouths together, wasting no time in being sweet and going straight to the moment where he parted his lips for him.

Chanyeol took great advantage of it, his tongue as experienced as when he had been slightly drunk, but this time it was even better. Because Baekhyun knew now, he was a hundred percent sure that he was the one currently on Chanyeol’s mind and that the hands pulling him closer to his body were doing so because he wanted Baekhyun, not Jaehyun.

“Touch me,” Baekhyun begged against Chanyeol’s lips, “show me, Chanyeol. Show me.” His hands tangled in Chanyeol’s hair for a second, until he could feel how the other was pulling him even closer before lifting him up. He accommodated then, his legs curling around Chanyeol’s waist and his hands holding on to the boy’s shoulders.

There was no wrong guess as to where Baekhyun’s room was, and as Chanyeol carried him there Baekhyun made good use of leaving as many hickeys on the other’s shoulder as he could. Payback for the week before, honestly.

He bounced on the bed as Chanyeol dropped him on it, but only a second later the boy crawled in between Baekhyun’s spread legs, lowering his body over him. His shirt fell open that way, making it so easy for Baekhyun to let his hands roam the way they had wanted to do minutes before.

He moved his hands to Chanyeol’s back as a tongue licked at his collarbone, and he trailed them up all the way to Chanyeol’s shoulderblades, only stopping when the other tugged at Baekhyun’s own shirt and told him, “take it off.”

“You take it off,” Baekhyun threw back as he pushed at the fabric of Chanyeol’s shirt, which was stuck at his shoulders now, and then they both laughed. Chanyeol pushed himself up on his knees so the shirt could slide down his arms and Baekhyun took the space created between them to lift his own upper body and drag his pajama shirt over his head.

Chanyeol took it from him and threw it on the ground along with his before he wasted no time in lowering himself down on top of the older boy again, this time kissing his way up Baekhyun’s stomach to his neck, all while his hands were holding on to Baekhyun’s waist. A tongue flicked over his nipple, no shame in it either, before Chanyeol let his teeth scrape across the hardening bud. If Chanyeol was nervous then it didn’t show.

Hands moved to Baekhun’s hips, pressing against the waistband of Baekhyun’s pants, and he didn’t even wait for Chanyeol to ask him to take them off. He simply brought his hands down to Chanyeol’s, arching his back and bucking up his hips enough to help the younger guy get it out of the way.

Chanyeol seemed slightly surprised at his boldness, but he didn’t refuse the help, and with his cheek still pressed to Baekhyun’s chest he got the boy’s pants down to mid-thigh. The kissing didn’t stop after that, not even when Chanyeol’s hand covered Baekhyun’s cock and he slowly jerked him until he was fully hard.

Somewhere along the way their lips found each other again, and when Baekhyun closed his eyes to the kiss it felt dizzying. His head was spinning, his body buzzing underneath Chanyeol’s, and he was itching to touch now. Which was why this time, he was the one begging, “ _Chanyeol_.”

It broke off the kiss, made the hand around him stop from moving, and once he bucked his hips up while making a whining sound, the touch was lost completely. Chanyeol sat back up, stared down at Baekhyun with dark, wide eyes and then rolled himself over on the bed.

He fell down next to Baekhyun, who was left staring up at the ceiling for a moment as he processed what had happened. Then Baekhyun crawled up, his pajama pants moving along with him until he got it past his knees. With a few more kicks it was out of the way, but Baekhyun didn’t bother getting rid of it, because his eyes were still on Chanyeol.

Chanyeol was wearing dark jeans, which needed a lot more attention than Baekhyun’s flimsy pajama pants. The tall guy was raising his hips, trying to get the denim down over his ass, and Baekhyun let out a laugh before he moved in to help. Their hands knocked into each other, but Chanyeol quickly let go to have Baekhyun do the work.

The fallen one crawled down Chanyeol’s body, facing his feet, and he knew he was on display like that now that he was naked, but it was simply the easiest way to push down Chanyeol’s pants. Truly, he wasn’t trying to be a tease, it was just an added bonus, and maybe he curved his back a little more than necessary, maybe he didn’t, it didn’t matter.

He was seated between Chanyeol’s legs once the denim fell from the boy’s ankles, down to the floor behind the bed, settled on hands and knees, when he felt a hand at the dip of his back again. As he looked past his body, watching behind himself, he could see how Chanyeol had sat himself up so he could touch, his fingers dipping down Baekhyun’s back until they reached his ass, and Baekhyun’s breathing stocked as he felt a finger rubbing the rim of his hole for a moment before it disappeared just as quickly as it had come.

Chanyeol’s hands didn’t go far, though. They got a steady grip on Baekhyun’s hips instead, and Baekhyun felt it when he was being tugged back. It made him fall over, his ass right at Chanyeol’s crotch while his back hit the taller’s chest. Chanyeol’s hands caught him, one arm around his stomach as he held on and pressed his mouth to Baekhyun’s neck hungrily.

Shit.

Baekhyun could feel Chanyeol’s erection pushing against his ass and he let himself think of that for only a second before he was rolling his hips back to actually feel it. He heard the groan that spilled from his crush’s lips, could feel the way he was straining to hold himself back from moving with Baekhyun. It was hard not to give in too easily, Baekhyun knew that, but he didn’t want to tease forever either.

He got a hold of Chanyeol’s hands and he grabbed them, making them leave his body, and he knew that if he would turn and look at the boy’s face he could see that confusion and uncertainty there again, which he didn’t want to see, and so he didn’t look. He only crawled away from Chanyeol’s body to get to his bedside table, and he was sure that once the other saw what he was doing he’d understand.

Throwing the bottle of lube Chanyeol’s way he jokingly said, “I take it you know what you’re doing,” and once he had fished out a condom he closed his drawer and rolled back over, onto his back. To his surprise Chanyeol took a second to move after he got the cap off the bottle, and it wasn’t actually until Baekhyun planted his feet on the bed, knees up, that he came closer again.

“Yeah, of course,” Chanyeol smiled down at him, his tone now a lot softer, and Baekhyun wondered what had happened to make the hurry from only seconds ago fade away so quickly. He didn’t ask though, only waited patiently for Chanyeol to cover his fingers in lube so he could get him ready.

When a finger was finally moving in and out of him, Chanyeol spent his time kissing the inside of Baekhyun’s thigh and admiring the view from where he lay. His eyes would flit up to meet Baekhyun’s from time to time, assessing the situation, until eventually a second finger was added, albeit little hesitantly.

It probably wasn’t supposed to be a big deal, that second finger, but to Baekhyun it was. Especially as a demon, Baekhyun had shared the bed with partners who were usually too rough to really prepare him well enough, and he had always dealt with the pain in his own way, burning it out in favour of chasing his release, but now he was actually being taken care of. It was sweet, it truly was, but after their days’ long build-up, Baekhyun needed more.

By the time Chanyeol thrust three fingers in for the fourth time, he was beyond ready. His cock was leaking onto his stomach and he was squirming unpleasantly, desperate for more, and he whined low in his throat to let Chanyeol know it.

The boy looked up in surprise, but he was clearly not getting what Baekhyun actually meant, because he pushed his fingers back in again in the same way as before. “No, that’s not-“ he said when he realised how Chanyeol thought he had found Baekhyun’s prostate, “just fucking fuck me already.”

There wasn’t anything graceful about his words, but they did what they had to. They brought out the darkness in Chanyeol’s eyes, and once Baekhyun had ripped open the package he had been holding on to for a while now, he handed it over without a second thought.

Chanyeol only took a second to get the condom out of its package and roll it on, but then he made the mistake to go and reach for the lube, at which Baekhyun just groaned out a, “forget it. Do it, Yeol, just do it.” He didn’t know where the nickname came from and Chanyeol didn’t comment on it, but he liked the way it sounded.

Yeol.

He could feel hands at his ankles, hands that lifted up his legs until they were pushed against his chest. It made breathing a little hard, but Baekhyun felt like he didn’t need the oxygen anyway, not with the way Chanyeol was looking at him, dick lined up against Baekhyun’s ass.

His body was glorious, his skin slick with sweat already, and the soft light of Baekhyun’s bedside lamp made him glow in the otherwise dark room. The anticipation was heavy in the air, pressing down on him even more, and Chanyeol decided he was tired of it.

With his left hand still on Baekhyun’s knee, pushing it down ever so slightly, he used his right to guide himself closer. Baekhyun could feel the way his fingers touched the skin of his ass once the head of Chanyeol’s cock had disappeared inside of him, and then, once the boy had a grip on Baekhyun’s right knee again, he pushed his hips forward.

Baekhyun could feel it as every inch of Chanyeol entered him, the sensation of his body opening up for him, and the feeling of being so full. He wasn’t sure whose pulse could be felt where their bodies joined, but it didn’t matter, because right then they were one. BaekhyunChanyeol or ChanyeolBaekhyun, the order wasn’t important.

The pressure on his knees was relieved slightly when Chanyeol used his strength to pull his hips back, but it was back again when he thrust inside, his cock sliding deeper than before. He kept rocking into Baekhyun that way until the slide was a little more comfortable, and by then Baekhyun was already a mess.

He realised that whatever stamina he had built up when he had been a demon, he had lost it all over the past year. His hand hadn’t been enough to prepare him for the feeling of being filled up again, and he already knew that this would last embarrassingly short, because once Chanyeol started fucking him in earnest, at a rapid speed, he had to close his eyes in order for them to not roll to the back of his head.

To say he hadn’t missed this would be a lie, but Baekhyun hadn’t wanted to do this with anyone else. He had wanted to have someone he cared about, someone he could trust and could love, and Chanyeol was that one. It had been so long, but it had been worth the wait, because he knew now that this was something real.

From this angle it was impossible for them to kiss properly, but Baekhyun was glad he couldn’t. There was already so little oxygen in his lungs that kissing Chanyeol now would surely lead to him suffocating, and well, he’d like to stay alive and do this again sometime in the future. Definitely.

For someone as tall and lanky as Chanyeol he could sure use his hips well, and Baekhyun enjoyed watching the boy’s chest move with every roll they made when he fucked into him. Chanyeol’s face was even more beautiful, with his lower lip dropped and the hairs stuck to his forehead as he stared down at Baekhyun with the same passion the fallen one felt.

In an attempt not to touch himself, Baekhyun covered one of Chanyeol’s hands with his own, making the taller’s rhythm falter because the touch made him let go of Baekhyun’s knee. The hand underneath his turned over, the palm up, and their fingers tangled together.

It made Baekhyun’s knee fall, the force that had kept it back now gone, but he was fast enough not to let it drop. Instead he brought it up over Chanyeol’s back, making him bend over more. The move caused him to gasp and squeeze the hand he was holding, for all he felt was how Chanyeol managed to get in that tiny bit deeper this way.

Chanyeol groaned, feeling the way Baekhyun was squeezing around him, and although holding on to Chanyeol’s hand had helped, Baekhyun still had another hand left that had found its way to his own cock without his mind having approved of the action.

“Chanyeol,” he brought out as he strained his neck, trying to hold on as long as he could, but the electricity he had felt before had already wired throughout his whole body. With every touch it became more dangerous, and soon it would strike his heart and make him black out during those blissful seconds he longed for.

He received a moan in reply, Chanyeol’s filter thinner now than before, and more and more sounds were starting to slip. Like before, Baekhyun could hear it when Chanyeol was close, and he was so thankful that he wasn’t far behind. It made it easier to hold on a little longer, but all of that changed the second Chanyeol’s filter really disappeared.

“Baekhyun,” he pleaded, voice sounding so dirty as he moaned it. “Baekhyun, Baekhyun,” he kept repeating himself, “god, Baek- Baek- _Baekhyun_ ,” Chanyeol hissed, his head thrown back in pleasure and Baekhyun watched the outline of his neck, following the vein that looked like it was about to pop and his adam’s apple as it bobbed up and down whenever he swallowed.

There were tears at the corners of Baekhyun’s eyes, he was that close, that desperate, but he couldn’t stop staring. He was completely unravelling from the way Chanyeol was pushing all the right buttons, from the way he was thrusting his cock right into Baekhyun’s prostate to the way he said Baekhyun’s name, it was too much to take.

Chanyeol came before him, which was a surprise, but his hips stuttered as the softest moan so far left his lips, the sound fading as his hips paused. Baekhyun could feel it inside of him, and god, he lost it. He lost it completely.

As expected, his vision darkened for the few seconds that his orgasm washed over him. He felt warm like the sun, calm like a wave rolling onto the shore, and although his heart was beating wildly in his chest he hadn’t felt this tranquil in a while.

When he came down to earth he felt empty, seeing Chanyeol on his heels, tying the condom while he got up on wobbly legs. Baekhyun watched him stumble over to the trashcan in the corner of the room before he rushed back to the bed, apparently glad he no longer had to stand on his legs. It made Baekhyun smile a little, knowing all too well how your legs could turn into jelly after a particularly intense orgasm. Maybe it had been a while for Chanyeol too.

Falling down next to each other, Baekhyun turned his head to look at his lover, who was still breathing heavily while he threw an arm over his eyes. It made Baekhyun laugh, and from underneath his arm Chanyeol sneaked a look at him, “what are you laughing at?”

Baekhyun shrugged, simply feeling content with the world then, and he turned on his side so he could look at Chanyeol better, “you? Us? The fact that we’re idiots? The fact that that was so good? It could really be anything.” He was only joking, but Chanyeol dropped his arm at that, stared at him incredulously.

“You think that is something to laugh about? Was it that funny?” Chanyeol asked as he stared at Baekhyun with this half a smile, a twinkling in his eyes that he had missed, and Baekhyun amusedly nodded at it only to be tugged down in the taller’s arms, his lips taken into another kiss that he wouldn’t have dared refused, and somehow that was that.

That was them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm backkkkkkk. But I'm sad to say that I will have to go back to posting once a week bc I haven't had the time to write enough. I'd rather post once a week and actually post than aim for twice a week and end up not posting for like two weeks then ^^ 
> 
> Anyway hope you liked this :3 


	19. Like a Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Angels don’t have many rules. It’s a very peaceful way of living, mostly, but there are still a few morals they live by. And when you break the rules, you get punished. The worst possible punishment is getting cut off. To have them take your wings and drop you like you’re nothing, down to hell where all the sinners go.”

~

 

Once Chanyeol had fallen asleep, which didn't take too long, Baekhyun spent his time curled up in the taller's arms, watching his face. He had looked so tired before that it was no wonder he fell asleep so quickly, tired from their workout and all the sleepless nights he had admitted to having gone through. 

It had been nice, the way he had pulled Baekhyun close while at the same time fussing about with the sheets in order to get them covered. It had been sweet, the way his head had hit the pillow before he had wrapped his long limbs around the shorter, legs entwining as his arms enveloped Baekhyun in warmth.

Cuddling with Chanyeol had been something that he had looked forward to and, honestly, he wasn't disappointed with how it felt. Most of all it was warm, so warm, to be this close to another body, but at the same time it wasn't nearly warm enough. 

Baekhyun kept trying to crawl closer, to somehow touch more, but it was impossible to move without Chanyeol moving as well, and that would only result in the taller waking up. So he stayed where he was, and he watched. 

He followed the shapes of Chanyeol's handsome face, admiring the perfect curved line of his eyelashes that was visible as his huge almond eyes were closed, all the way down to the adorable roundness of his nose.

Chanyeol's jaw was slack, making his face a little chubbier than usual with his cheeks puffy, and it created this tiny chin dimple that was begging to be kissed. 

Baekhyun was mesmerised by the way Chanyeol's lower lip stuck out in a pout some, the skin raw and red from their kisses, and by the way his cheeks looked so pinchable with his face pressed into the pillow. His ears had never looked as cute as they did then, with his hair all messy on top of his head. He looked younger than he was, more innocent than Baekhyun now knew he was, and it was adorable.

He didn’t know how long he stayed awake like that, watching Chanyeol’s relaxed features and the way his nose scrunched up from time to time. It could have only been minutes or more than an hour, but he kept his gaze locked on Chanyeol’s face up to the moment where his eyelids finally drooped shut and sleep took him too.

~

Baekhyun woke up before the sun did, with the room still barely lit enough to make out everything in it. Having slept an hour or two before Chanyeol had arrived at his place had made it Baekhyun had rested enough, and so he crawled out of the arms that were still holding him and pushed himself up from the bed. 

The body next to him only rolled over on its back and Baekhyun watched as the arm that had been previously wrapped around him fell down on the other side of the bed. Chanyeol stayed like that, arms spread out wide and cheek resting against his shoulder as he settled again. 

When Baekhyun was sure the coast was clear and Chanyeol was still fast asleep, he bent down to pick up his underwear before walking over to his closet to get himself the white woolen turtleneck sweater he loved so much. 

Watching Chanyeol's sleeping form as he got dressed, Baekhyun couldn't help but smile and replay the conversation they had had hours before. The words that had led to the taller one being there, in Baekhyun's bed. He could still hear the determination and warmth that had been in his crush's words as he had tried to explain why Baekhyun should give him a shot. Why he had to give _them_ a shot.

He remembered then how Chanyeol hadn't come empty-handed, and when he was done putting on some socks, making sure his feet wouldn't get cold, he walked out of his bedroom and right to the kitchen.

The basket Chanyeol had been carrying the night before still stood on his counter, it hadn't been a figment of his imagination, and it was another piece of evidence that proved how he hadn't dreamt it all. 

Baekhyun spotted the red of the carnations from far away, and so his first stop was the cupboard. He had to stand on his tiptoes to reach the top shelf where he knew a vase stood, one that he had gotten along with the flowers Minseok had bought for his housewarming months ago. He had put it there thinking he would never use it again and it would just stand there until so much dust covered it that no one could tell what the thing was in the first place. 

It was a miracle he didn't drop the heavy glass once his fingers finally caught hold of it, with the vase lifted high above his head, and he quickly put it down in the sink when he got a better grip on it, just so karma wouldn’t have a chance to get payback for that thought.

He filled the glass with water while he turned around to pick up the boquet of carnations. They were beautiful, like tiny ruffled ribbons of red, and he smiled as he looked at them. He should have probably put them in water last night, but his mind had been preoccupied with other things. Much more... interesting things.

Once the flowers were set in the water, Baekhyun carried the vase to his table, putting it down there so he could look at them when he would watch TV, and then he slowly returned to the basket. 

What was left inside were two movies, a box of chocolates and a bottle of rice wine. 

He put the wine away for another time and then carelessly opened the box of chocolates so he could pop one in his mouth as he picked up the DVD's. The first was a marvel movie, an action movie that he hadn't seen yet, and he remembered telling Chanyeol that he was into sci-fi and action more than romance. Apparently Chanyeol had remembered how most romantic movies made him sick to his stomach, because neither movies seemed to be about love. 

The second one must have been one of Chanyeol's favourites, for he always seemed to combine both of their interests. Like with the ice cream, he had brought something of his and something Baekhyun would like, which was so thoughtful that Baekhyun couldn't help but smile. And as before, that night of the icecream incident, instead of taking his own favourite, which would have been the marvel movie, Baekhyun took the other.

School of Rock it was called, and Baekhyun instantly realised from the cover and the title that this was a movie about a teacher and music, two things he knew Chanyeol loved. 

Taking his chocolates with him, he walked over to the DVD player to get the disc in before he went and settled down on the couch. He pulled his legs up, hiding half of his thighs in the warmth of the sweater, and he smiled as he felt the clear tell-tale signs of his ass having been put to good use. It wasn't a bad feeling though, just a subtle reminder that made Baekhyun blush, and while he tugged up the neck of his sweater enough to hide his cheeks, he pressed play. 

He was actually curious to see what Chanyeol enjoyed watching, and as the movie played, Baekhyun found himself wondering at every joke if it would have made Chanyeok laugh. He imagined Chanyeol singing along, Chanyeol in front of a group of kids playing the guitar and getting them excited about music. It fit, it fit the tall goof so well.

He was about halfway through the movie when someone else laughed along with the guy laughing on TV, and when Baekhyun tipped back his head he saw Chanyeol leaning on the couch behind him. His arms set besides Baekhyun's body, his eyes on the TV, and Baekhyun instantly felt himself go red again as the other dropped his head and looked down into Baekhyun's eyes. 

"You're watching school of rock," Chanyeol said in surprise, his upside-down smile just as pretty as his normal one, and Baekhyun smiled back as he craned his head a little more, "yeah, I am. Is this your favourite movie?" 

Chanyeol nodded as he leaned down and very carefully pressed a kiss to his mouth, his chin touching Baekhyun's nose as he did. It was so simple, nothing heavy, just a good morning kiss, but it still made him grin and close his eyes. 

After the kiss, Chanyeol made his way around the couch so he could sit down next to Baekhyun, and although he had expected for things to be awkward, they were anything but. Chanyeol even tugged Baekhyun's legs up on his lap when he settled down while looking at the screen. In return, Baekhyun held out the box of chocolates and let his crush take one before he set it down next to him. 

He could feel Chanyeol's hands warm on the skin of his lower legs, fingers playing with the edge of his fuzzy socks, and they fell into a comfortable silence as they watched the movie together. At least for a while, because by the time Chanyeol's fingers had trailed up so much that they reached the hem of Baekhyun's sweater, his thoughts were on anything but the screen. 

"Did you sleep well?" He asked as he cleared his throat, making Chanyeol look up to meet his eyes. He received a nod in reply while a heart was being drawn into the skin of his thighs, "yeah." 

"Good," Baekhyun nodded, kept nodding too, and his mouth was running dry as those fingers slipped underneath his shirt. "I'm glad, you looked tired," he added as he tried not to squirm underneath the touch.

"I was," Chanyeol replied, his smile growing wider and making his eyes squeeze shut a little more, "I had a pretty intense workout last night after a few nights of dreaming of said workout." 

Baekhyun laughed and finally slapped Chanyeol's trailing fingers away from his skin, "ah, I see. Will you sleep that long every time you get to work out?" He asked, feeling playful enough to joke about it, and Chanyeol raised his eyebrows at it. 

"Are you saying I will get to again?" He asked smugly, fingers moving back up to where they had been right before Baekhyun had pushed his hand away. This time he let them linger there rather than creep up further, let them draw soothing figures into the older’s skin. It was nice, being like that, sitting together as if things were easy. 

Minseok had told him that Kyungsoo and he had gotten together and dealt with their issues whenever that bridge had needed to be crossed, rather than making a big deal of everything before they had even gotten anywhere. Was it their time now? Was this where Baekhyun and Chanyeol would try?

"Shut up," Baekhyun grumbled as he let his hand find Chanyeol's, stopping it from drawing, and he entwined their fingers. They fell silent for a while, both of them absent-mindedly watching the movie without really following the story any longer. And then Chanyeol pulled his hand free from Baekhyun's, making the fallen one splutter as he tried to let the touch linger.

Chanyeol though, he stood up and paused the movie. He turned to Baekhyun next, his hands outstretched towards him, and said, "come." Baekhyun blinked up at the taller, feeling his cheeks heat up instantly as he thought of what they had just been talking about and about the suggestion Chanyeol appeared to be making. 

He took the hands, let himself be tugged up on his feet, knocking into Chanyeol's chest, and then be led back to his bedroom as Chanyeol laughed lowly. Nothing about him seemed to be bothered, to feel uncomfortable and unsure, and so Baekhyun let his shoulders relax some more. 

They fell down on the bed together, Chanyeol pulling him on top of him, and Baekhyun was sure that he had elbowed the taller in the stomach in the process, but Chanyeol didn't whine about it. He only wrapped himself around Baekhyun like he was a human blanket, and unlike what Baekhyun had expected, lying down didn't lead to more kisses and touching. 

They just stayed there together, with Chanyeol pressed to his back and his hand sprawled out against Baekhyun's stomach, underneath the shirt. Tiny kisses were pressed to his head, where Chanyeol kept his lips, and Baekhyun closed his eyes and swore he could easily fall asleep like that again.

His heart was desperately trying to keep the bad thoughts at bay, the worries that he felt because it was dangerous and not possible to love someone this soon in, right? The way Chanyeol was holding him now, the way he had been holding him since the night before, it was so filled with love. But he couldn't be, could he?

Just like Baekhyun, the fallen one that had never before been in love, couldn't possibly have fallen this quickly for a guy he barely knew. It was impossible. Was this what angels felt like when they fell in love?

“Tell me about what it’s like being an angel?” Chanyeol asked with his arm still wrapped around Baekhyun’s waist, his nose pressed to the shorter’s hair. Baekhyun could feel his breath ghost the hairs at the back of his neck and it made him shiver slightly, pressing himself into the taller’s embrace to seek more warmth.

“If I do, what are you going to share with me in return?” Baekhyun asked, “I don’t want to be the only one talking, I want to know more about you too.” He twisted in the arms that wrapped around him from behind, turning halfway onto his back so he could look at Chanyeol, “do we have a deal?”

Seeing the man’s face behind him, his eyes so soft and his lips curling up into a barely-there smile, it made him that much weaker. More than anything he just wanted to kiss him, wanted to not use words and instead feel weightless the way he had done before. However, Chanyeol had asked him a question, and he was dying to find out more, too.

“Sure, I’ll tell you about my life. It’s not very interesting, especially not in comparison to yours, I bet, but I guess it’s my version of you telling me about life as an angel,” Chanyeol argued, shrugging as he gave Baekhyun more room to lie down. They ended up sort of facing each other instead, their legs still tangled together comfortably and their elbows resting underneath their heads.

“You go first,” Baekhyun told Chanyeol, nudging his head at him, and the taller rolled his eyes at him but still smiled before he let his gaze settle on the ceiling, as if he’d find the answer of where to start on the crumbling flakes of paint that reminded Baekhyun of just how poor he was.

“Okay, so… I was born and raised in Anyang in a family of four. I have one older sister, Yoora, but my parents have pets as well, so I guess you could say it was more than a family of four. I grew up learning kindness in a house where it was never quiet, whether the dogs were barking or music was being made, it was never silent,” Chanyeol started his story, a careful smile on his face, “that was just over twenty-six years ago. Alright? Now you say something.”

Baekhyun chuckled at the abrupt ending of Chanyeol’s story before he licked his lips and thought of what to explain. “I too have parents, and I actually have a brother as well. He’s more handsome than I was and way better at being an angel as well. I was always the black sheep of the family. See, when you’re born as an angel you are born with one job in life and that is to protect and to love. I wasn’t very good at falling in love, though.”

He frowned, trying to find words that would explain how difficult the life of an angel was, and it was harder than he had expected. The nice thing about having Kyungsoo around had been that Baekhyun actually hadn’t needed to explain to Minseok what it was like being an angel, because due to Kungsoo he had already known. But Chanyeol, he was new to this all. Chanyeol needed explaining.

“The host I had as an angel looked quite a bit like this body, the face at least, but our actual souls are more like… I guess they look like a splotch of light,” he chuckled, “I don’t know how else to describe it. Anyway, our souls age much slower than yours, and so angels can love multiple humans throughout their lives before we die ourselves. When I fell, my soul was probably around thirty-six years old, if you’d count it in human years, but as an angel I was considered a young adult. A teenager.”

Baekhyun shut up then, showing it was time for Chanyeol to continue his story, but for half a minute or so nothing happened. Chanyeol lay there watching him, very carefully taking in all the information Baekhyun was sharing, until it had seemingly all landed and he got to clear his head enough to go back to his own story.

“I started playing guitar when I was nine and wrote my first love song a year later, when I had a crush on my best friend back then. I didn’t think twice about the fact that my best friend was a guy and that I had a crush on him, and my parents never told me it was wrong either, which was kind of why I was left feeling surprised when kids started to avoid me at school right after I had sung it for him. They made fun of me, started calling me names too, but luckily it didn’t take too long before I got to start over fresh in high school.”

Chanyeol totally looked like the type of guy to fall in love and not worry about what others would think, the type to be oblivious to prejudices because he was so pure, believing in the good in people. It almost made Baekhyun feel sad for him, but he also knew that whatever had happened had probably shaped him to be the person he was now.

“That was where I got my first boyfriend. We dated for four months, which wasn’t too long, but after that I really started dating. Sometimes a girl would catch my eye and I would try go on dates with them too, but I always ended up going back to boys,” Chanyeol shrugged before he went quiet, obviously passing the ball back to Baekhyun.

He hummed, trying to think of what else to say without talking about his mistakes too much. It was inevitable though, because there was still the story of how he had ended up a mortal rather than an angel. “Angels don’t have many rules. It’s a very peaceful way of living, mostly, but there are still a few morals they live by. And when you break the rules, you get punished. The worst possible punishment is getting cut off. To have them take your wings and drop you like you’re nothing, down to hell where all the sinners go.”

Baekhyun knew that even if he would shut up now, Chanyeol wasn’t going to pick up where he left off. He knew that the other wanted to hear more now, that he wouldn’t budge until Baekhyun had answered the burning question of what had happened to him that had made him fall.

There were a few options for Baekhyun. He could either lie about it completely, make up a story and be done with it, or he could be vague about it and hope Chanyeol would let it be. Of course, there was the option of being honest too, but that one was absolutely out of the question.

“So, I failed my job and they cast me aside. My own parents didn’t look back twice when they took me away. They didn’t fight to stop them from removing my wings, no matter how hard I screamed and begged, and I know they didn’t even bother to ask if I had survived the fall. It was like one day they were a family of four and the next they were a family of three, as if nothing had happened. As if I hadn’t ever been there,” Baekhyun sighed quietly, trying to make it seem like it was no big deal either.

“I’m sorry,” Chanyeol replied, “I can’t imagine what that’s like, losing your family. I bawled my eyes out the whole way to university, knowing I’d have to live on my own and would be seeing my family a lot less.” He laughed quietly, as if it was funny just how much he appreciated his family. Baekhyun wished he could understand.

“But University brought me a lot of good things too,” Chanyeol added to it, “I learned how to live on my own, I grew up a lot through the responsibilities I had, and I fell in love for the very first time. Jaehyun was my roommate, you know? He moved in about halfway through the first year, deciding the time it took for him to get to and from university to his parents’ place was just too much to deal with every day.”

Baekhyun blinked once Chanyeol mentioned Jaehyun, feeling how something in his chest dropped a little, and as if he expected Baekhyun’s smile to melt away, Chanyeol reached out to take the shorter’s hand in his own, “I’m not mentioning him because I still love him and want him back. I’m just telling you my story, and he was a part of that.”

Fair enough. Baekhyun would have to accept that Jaehyun was a part of Chanyeol’s past. He just had to remember that he was the one currently in bed with him, and that helped some. Baekhyun nodded, told Chanyeol, “I guess hell did the same for me. I could no longer just wait and see what time would get me, I had to fight for myself. I changed down there, I lost a lot of my innocence and I was angry for a long time, but I turned that anger into a motivator.”

Chanyeol nodded, watching Baekhyun with serious eyes as if he understood what that was like. Maybe he did. “I still wanted to love, I wanted so much more than light or darkness, than good or bad, and I knew that if I wanted that then I’d have to work for it. I became a different Baekhyun, one that used sex and manipulation as a tool to get himself up to the top, until people were done with me. And what do you do with a demon you’re tired of, because hell is already the worst punishment possible, right?”

Baekhyun chuckled as he rolled his eyes, “well there is only one thing that scares demons, and that’s losing whatever power they have and being left as nothing but a trembling, weak mortal. They think power is everything, but I thought differently. So I waited patiently until I could make the right deal, and then I signed that paper and was freed from my past. Now I age like a mortal, hurt like a mortal and I will die like a mortal.”

“Ah,” Chanyeol smiled, “well at least I won’t have to worry about you living forever while I will die one day. Although, that sounds really stupid now that I’m saying it out loud. Nevermind,” he turned his smile into the pillow and his eyes fell shut, as if he felt embarrassed for whatever was going through his mind.

Baekhyun watched him silently, eyes on his face where he noticed every change in expression the second Chanyeol’s muscles twitched. It was clear that Baekhyun was waiting for Chanyeol to tell him more, about whatever, but it took a while for their conversation to resume again.

“I was studying to become a teacher, Jaehyun was studying to become some sort of food-biologist sort of person. I don’t remember the exact name for it. He was obsessed with the way bodies worked, he knew everything about how food could affect your health, and it got to a point where it was obsessive and a little weird. He was a vegetarian, went to yoga classes and made sure there were only healthy things in our fridge. He’d feed me a green smoothie every morning too, and let me tell you… some of those were truly gross,” Chanyeol chuckled, “but I lost some weight due to them and I started taking better care of my body. Now I go on runs, try not to eat ready-meals if I don’t have to and I even teach my children the things he taught me.”

Somehow it was really nice to hear about how Jaehyun had impacted Chanyeol’s life in a positive way. Baekhyun knew that his jealousy was a little misplaced, and that his anger towards the guy for his suicide couldn’t actually be justified unless he’d find out a reason as to why.

“What was his personality like? Was it like yours, happy all the time? Or was he grumpy? Was he more selfish or selfless?” Baekhyun realised how weird it was that he was suddenly asking this, and as he felt Chanyeol’s eyes on him, curiosity in them, he felt flustered. “I- I mean, I guess it would be nice to know a bit more about the person who used to be in this body before me.”

Chanyeol’s eyes were trying to read his, probably wondering whether he was being sarcastic or not, and when he decided he wasn’t, Chanyeol went on. “He wasn’t self-centred at all, but he was sort of greedy? I mean that as in, he knew what he wanted and wouldn’t stop until he got it. Most of the time he’d be smiling, but he could have these periods where he’d draw in on himself more and would be a lot quieter, a lot smaller too. We balanced each other like that. He made sure I wouldn’t lose myself in my energy and I made sure he wouldn’t fall into the sadness that sometimes tugged at his feet.”

“Oh,” Baekhyun answered, not sure if it was what he had wanted to hear. Then again, he wasn’t really sure what he would have actually hoped for, if he’d want to hear Chanyeol say he was depressed or that he was anything but. One would explain the end of his life more, but the other made him understand the love Jaehyun and Chanyeol had had. He didn’t want to think about Chanyeol loving someone unworthy.

“I’m not sure you know, but I’m very thankful to him,” Baekhyun voiced as he looked down at their hands between their bodies, “I know there wasn’t anything else we could have done for him, but rather than his memory going to waste, he gave me life. I may not know him, I may be jealous of how he is in your heart more than I am, but I don’t hate him for getting me in this position.”

“But Baekhyun,” Chanyeol kept his voice soft, like he was worried he’d scare him away otherwise, “I cannot be in your heart the way I was in Jaehyun’s either. I mean, even if my heart had been fully unoccupied when we met, we’ve barely even gotten to know each other. I don’t know any of your bad habits yet and you don’t know mine either. For all you know I’m an asshole that farts all the time and always eats the same type of food. Yeah, what if I would only eat pork at all times?”

He made a joke of it, one that made Baekhyun laugh out loud, twisting his face into the pillow as he thought of Chanyeol at a table full of only pork, a big belly hanging over his pants. It looked ridiculous, Chanyeol _was_ ridiculous, but he was making sense. Maybe Baekhyun was exaggerating, it could very well be true, he wasn’t good at identifying emotions yet.

Deciding he’d talk to Minseok about whether it was love he felt or something simpler, Baekhyun scooted a little closer to the boy in front of him with the goal of ending their talk. “Have you figured out enough about the life of an angel right now? Cause I kind of want to kiss you rather than talk forever and ever,” he smiled sweetly, tipping his chin up as if he was begging for a kiss.

It worked, made Chanyeol’s eyes drop to his lips, and he bent over to press a single kiss to Baekhyun’s lips before he pulled back with a slow grin. His eyes were bright the way they seemed to get whenever Chanyeol was being playful, and then he moved away. The move had Baekhyun fall face flat on the bed, which didn’t hurt but made him whine anyway, and at first it didn’t really make sense to him why his crush sounded so smug as he spoke again.  

“Almost,” He said, the word making worry creep into Baekhyun’s body, and he was about to get his hands underneath himself so he could push himself up, but then Chanyeol’s hands were on his back. They held him down, even when Baekhyun struggled, and it was then that the fallen one realised just how strong Chanyeol was.

“What are you-“ Baekhyun started to ask, his head turned to the side so he could breathe out the words, but he stopped when he felt Chanyeol’s hands underneath his shirt. Although, they weren’t exactly underneath it, more like hooking the fabric of Baekhyun’s sweater between his thumb and his fingers, so that when his hands moved up, so did the sweater.

Cold air hit Baekhyun’s back, and he gasped and squirmed in an attempt to get away from it, “Chanyeol, don’t make me fight you,” he warned, managing to make the taller stumble for a second with how much he was moving. “If you’re trying to get me naked all you have to do is say,” he added to it, just in case he was misreading the situation.

Chanyeol paused then, fingers still tickling the skin of Baekhyun’s back, the shirt raised about halfway now. “I’m just curious,” he whispered, almost sounding a little guilty for not asking permission first, “I get it though if you don’t want me to, it’s just that I’ve already seen you naked and- but I didn’t pay attention then.”

It took way too long for Baekhyun’s brain to catch up on what the idiot on top of him was talking about, and he had already thrown out a, “what?” when he finally realised what it meant, why Chanyeol was trying to get him half-naked.

“Your wings,” Chanyeol spoke slowly, his hands carefully moving up a little more. The move was so slow and deliberate, obviously a test to see whether Baekhyun would let him continue now that the purpose was clear, and the fallen one didn’t move one bit.

He knew the traces were barely visible, because after all he had shed his angelic form, but the scars lingered attached to Baekhyun’s soul, and so two marks were still visible between his shoulderblades. They were probably a very light pinkish colour, close to the colour of his skin, but judging by the touches he felt on his upper back only moments later, they hadn’t faded completely.

An index finger traced the scars that followed the curve of his shoulder blades, stretching out almost halfway down his back, and he could hear the way Chanyeol gasped as he touched them, one by one. Baekhyun wondered what he was thinking, if it felt strange to him to see such scars on Jaehyun’s old body, but he pushed the thought aside.

“I wish I could have seen you like that, with wings. I bet you would have looked absolutely stunning, like an actual angel. I bet I would have been in awe,” Chanyeol told him, the touch of his finger disappearing, and Baekhyun was about ready to roll over, except the finger was then replaced by lips.

Chanyeol left carefully placed kisses, featherlight, to his back, making Baekhyun’s mouth run dry. To feel someone care for him that gently, it really was something he had to get used to after all the tough times he had been through. Most of his life he had spent on his own, but now he felt like he had someone there by his side, finally.

Love or not, whether they felt it in the same intensity, none of that mattered to him right now because this all was only a confirmation of how there was at least something. And only a spark was needed to light a fire, only a speck of light was enough to brighten a dark room. There was something there, it was in the way Chanyeol treated him with care, and it overwhelmed Baekhyun to the point where he couldn’t lie still anymore.

He rolled over, making Chanyeol almost topple over, but Baekhyun could have cared less because that was exactly what he wanted. He dragged the taller down on top of him and kissed him hard, mouths bruising in their touch, and all he hoped was that Chanyeol felt what he was trying to make him feel. All he wished for was another day of this, and another day after that.

All he wanted right now was Chanyeol. As long as he had that, then nothing could make his smile fade from his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for a bit more cuteness before we're going back to the angst. Enjoy it while it lasts, cause it won't ;---) 
> 
> Also, I think, with what I have planned, that this fic will be about 30-35 chapters. I'm really trying not to make it longer but it all depends on how many scenes I need to write to finish the full story :---) 


	20. Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baekhyun dropped his head on his arms and squealed quietly, trying not to draw Minseok’s attention to him, but as he looked up again it seemed like his friends had never even looked away from him in the first place.
> 
> “What?” Baekhyun’s throat was tight, his heart beating fast, “he said ‘since we got together’, alright? Give me a break.”

~

 

When Baekhyun arrived at the bar that night with Chanyeol right by his side, their gloved hands linked between their bodies, Minseok was over the moon. His friend’s smile just wouldn't stop from taking up his whole face, even though it made his eyes squeeze shut so much that Baekhyun wondered if he could see everything clearly at all. 

The second they had walked in together, through the front entrance this time, a handful of people had turned their heads to look at them, which wasn’t entirely strange seen as they brought in a wave of cold air into the bar.

Baekhyun had been able to feel Nam-gi's burning gaze as he walked past the asshole, and he couldn't hold back the smugness he felt while showing off the piece of candy on his arm. A thousand times better than him, and Baekhyun knew that that had to sting. Not that he cared about Nam-gi’s feelings, but he felt kind of victorious knowing how the guy probably realised now how he had to stay away.

But it wasn't actually until Chanyeol had sat down on one of the stools at the bar, letting go of Baekhyun's hand in favour or pulling him close by his hips, and kissed him goodbye before Baekhyun had to get ready for his shift, that Minseok caught up with what was going on.

Alerted by the presence of a new customer, he had made his way over while Jongin was working at the tap, only to find Baekhyun lip-locked with Chanyeol right in front of him. It was a pity that Baekhyun had his eyes closed, because the fallen one had heard his best friend shriek either in surprise or excitement, the sound carrying over the music being played, and he was sure the look on his friend’s face would have been priceless.

He smiled against Chanyeol's lips before breaking free, "sorry I'm late, boss, this huge idiot had trouble finding his left sock and refused to lend a pair of mine." Baekhyun turned to Minseok as he took off his gloves, sending him his apologetic puppy eyes that he just knew would get him out of almost anything. They were truly a good asset to have in times like these.

Next to him, Chanyeol poked his ribs to show his annoyance at Baekhyun calling him out like that, but Minseok wasn't bothered by any of it. In fact, Baekhyun's best friend only laughed harder, completely forgetting how he was supposed to be angry at his employee for being late once again. Instead he suggestively wiggled his eyebrows, making light of the matter, "sure, sure... A sock, huh? Why was that sock off in the first place?" 

"Minseok!" Baekhyun fake-gasped loudly before he turned his head to glare at his friend with wide eyes, but Minseok no longer cared. His smile was huge and bright, and he knowingly looked between the two boys who were still standing way too closely together. "What? You're no longer grumpy,” he added with a shrug of his shoulders, and that was simply too much.

Baekhyun knew it was a stab at the conversation they had had a while ago already, when he had been very touchy and moody, quick to get pissed off at every tiny thing that would go wrong. Minseok had been blunt in saying he had needed to get laid, and although Baekhyun still honestly believed it wasn't _just_ about getting laid, he understood what his friend meant. 

"Oh my god, shut up," Baekhyun groaned as he stepped away from Chanyeol, but not before he pecked his lips once more. "You, stay," he told the taller, who was watching him in astonishment, "I'll make you a drink before you go home."

He walked off quickly to hang up his coat and get his apron tied around his waist, wanting to catch Chanyeol before he really had to leave. The idiot had offered to drop him off at work just so they could spend some more time together, but Baekhyun knew he had a lot of work left at home preparing for his next day of classes. There was only one week left before the Christmas break and that meant it was a busy time for Chanyeol. 

"Alright," Baekhyun said as he fixed his hair, making his way over to where his crush was seated. He was talking to Minseok now, who appeared to have started firing a whole list of questions at him, and Chanyeol looked rather uncomfortable like that. Luckily, Baekhyun was there to save him, and as he pushed Minseok aside he managed to hear the final words of his question, "...relationship now?" 

He was glad he didn't get to hear Chanyeol's answer to it, because no matter how curious he was to hear his reply, they hadn't really talked about that yet. They hadn't at all discussed where they stood in terms of the future, and that was actually good to him, because Baekhyun didn't want to rush things now. They were fine the way they were, just getting to see where things would go, so why should they rush that with official terms that wouldn't change anything?

"So, alcoholic or non-alcoholic? I know it's early, but some of the men here have been drinking since three o'clock already," Baekhyun interrupted while he got a cocktail shaker ready, staring at Chanyeol in question. He hoped the tension in the air that Minseok’s questions had left them with would fade soon, and when he stood there making finger guns with the shaker in hand, he was glad to see it was enough to make Chanyeol relax and smile again.

Shaking his head a tad amusedly, his lover refused the offer before he pointed at the coffee machine behind Baekhyun, "just get me a cappuccino. I'll need to stay awake for a while, and after last night and then this morning..." he trailed off, smiling as he was very aware of how Minseok was still standing right there. Chanyeol was doing it on purpose.

Baekhyun expected more yelling and shrieking, maybe a punch to his arm or whatever, but for someone who was clearly excited about the events of their night, Minseok managed to keep himself in check very well.

Still, composed or not, Baekhyun could see his boss was biting his lip on a grin, preventing himself from saying more, when Baekhyun turned around to get to the coffee machine instead. "Now Baekhyun can't woo you by showing his amazing mixology skills," Minseok told Chanyeol with a teasing tone to his voice, "such a pity."

He was trying to make a fool of Baekhyun, to show off the more humiliating sides of him, and that was something about human life that Baekhyun would probably never get. He’d seen mothers purposely embarrass their children in front of their lovers, just like Minseok was doing to him, and he didn’t get why they did that. Didn’t they know it wasn’t cute at all?  

"Minseok… shut up," Baekhyun gritted through his teeth as he worked the machine, having done it so often by then that he didn't really have to think about it. Rather than thinking about the coffee, Baekhyun focused on how he wanted to punch his smug looking friend in the face and how he wanted him to stop making it so obvious that he was aware of everything happening between him and Chanyeol. 

"He usually has more buttons undone than just this one," Minseok went on when Baekhyuj turned back, the cup of coffee in his hands the only thing stopping him from using his hapkido skills on his boss, "but I guess having you around now makes him a little tamer than he used to be." 

Once the coffee cup was put down in front of Chanyeol, Baekhyun turned around and raised his hand up in the air as if he was about to strike. Minseok jumped away, being too fast as well as Baekhyun being too predictable. He should have thought about this a little better, should have known Minseok would see this coming.

"I'm calling Kyungsoo," Minseok yelped, phone already in hand as he was typing something, and Baekhyun rolled his eyes at that, not really impressed by the threat, "fine, let him come over. All he ever does is glare at me with those murderous eyes until I shut up, anyway." Kyungsoo was good at threatening, but Baekhyun was good at letting it all go by him.

He didn't comment on how Minseok was breaking his own no-phone rule, knowing if he did then he'd get another round worth of embarrassment in front of Chanyeol and he didn't want that. He'd had enough shaming for one night, and so he looked at Chanyeol instead of his best friend and sent him a smile as his crush lifted the cup of coffee to his lips. 

"Anyway," he cleared his throat, bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet, and Chanyeol let his eyes flit back up to Baekhyun's face once he'd taken a sip. "I was thinking about, like, where do we go from here?" He dared asking, unsure of what ground they were on now. Was it stable or could he still be pulled down into quicksand? Or worse, could he still fall through vines and into a bottomless pit of despair?

He didn't need to know what they were, if they were dating now or not, he really didn’t need a label to put on it. All he needed was to know how they would go about this from now on. Whether they would go back to texting in order to get to know each other, the way they were trying to, or if things would be different now. He wondered if it would be okay to meet up again or if that was too soon. Was he the only one thinking about these things?

"What do you mean? Wasn't that clear?" Chanyeol asked, his eyebrows raised slightly as he stared at Baekhyun over the brim of his cup. After a second of thinking, Baekhyun slowly shook his head, deciding on being honest about it, to which Chanyeol then hummed, "oh. Well, I thought me showing up at your door after midnight only to kiss you senseless was enough of a sign that I'm into you and that I want to see you more." 

Baekhyun looked down, gaze dropping to the bar where Chanyeol rested his elbows, as heat crawled up to his cheeks. Alright, so maybe he should have realised that that was what the taller had been thinking, but even if he had known that, it still meant some things were a little unclear. Because Baekhyun had been into Chanyeol for a while, and back then they hadn’t been seeing each other in person yet. "Oh, so that means no going back to texting? Or, I mean, not _only_ texting?" 

Chanyeol laughed at him as he put down his cup on its plate again, looking genuinly amused by his silly question. It wasn't funny to Baekhyun, though, because he truly didn't know what to make of these things. After all, he wasn't human by nature, had no experience in this whatsoever. To him it was all new, his first love, and he knew it wasn’t that way for Chanyeol.

Thankfully, though, his crush made his anxiety disappear as he assured him, "you're cute being this flustered,” before he added a, “don't worry, Baek, I mean exactly that,” to it.

He sent a smile along with the words as well, and Baekhyun felt the heat in his cheeks move all the way up to his ears. He was sure he was bright red by now, totally flustered by such an innocent thing, and it probably didn't fit the whole vibe he was going for. Luckily for him, not all his customers had that effect on Baekhyun or else he'd surely not get many tips. 

"Okay, well, I'm not that good at reading between the lines so it's best if you word those things for me," Baekhyun admitted quietly, "if you don't then I might end up losing sleep thinking about what you meant ‘that one time when you said...’, you know?" He smiled sheepishly, shrugging as if to excuse himself for it, but Chanyeol only smiled wider. 

"Like I said, it's cute," Chanyeol took his cup again, taking another sip of the coffee inside of it, "and I'll remember. I promise. As long as you do the same, though." It was so playful, the way Chanyeol was acting around him now, and Baekhyun felt his heart skip a beat in his chest.

He nodded in reply, "okay, I can do that." Then he looked away from his crush, eyes trailing down to the bar as his hands came up to his shirt. He popped another button, feeling more comfortable with it now, and he quickly met Chanyeol's eyes again before he cleared his throat and said, voice a tone darker, "alright. Time for me to make some money." 

~

With only three days to go till Christmas Eve, Baekhyun was getting a little nervous. For the past week he had been repeatedly refusing Minseok’s offer while also continuously ignoring whatever suggestive comments his friend was making about him spending his Christmas with Chanyeol. He didn’t want to think about it. He wanted to just skip Christmas altogether.

“Shut it, I’m not asking him. It’s weird this soon, and I’m not inviting him to my crack apartment for a day like Christmas,” Baekhyun told Minseok for the umpteenth time, tired of the way his friend kept bothering him about it, “besides, maybe he has plans. He has a family you know, back where he and Jaehyun grew up.”

They were valid points, arguments that Minseok should have long since accepted, but somehow his friend wasn’t taking it. He kept bothering Baekhyun with it. Via text when he wasn’t at work, while he was trying to score some great tips by showing off his mixing skills at work, and his friend even reminded him when he went to the bathroom to take a piss. He seemed to be everywhere, trying to pressure Baekhyun into discussing it with his crush and Baekhyun was having none of it.

It wasn’t strange how Minseok hadn’t given up on bothering him with it. Knowing his best friend he would keep going until Baekhyun gave in. Because when Minseok knew he was right about something he wouldn’t let it go, and even when he was wrong, if he was determined then that determination would show.

Kyungsoo had once admitted that the only reason they had ended up together was because Minseok had been so persistent. Just like Baekhyun had done to Chanyeol, Kyungsoo had tried to push Minseok away for his own safety and for the sake of having a normal life, but leave it to Kim Minseok to do everything in his power to get the complete opposite.

But it wasn’t because of Minseok that he was that annoyed all the time. His friend was only trying to help him, but he didn’t realise how it would never work because the one thing that was stopping Baekhyun from doing anything about it was his own damn brain. Because Baekhyun hadn’t admitted to himself yet how most of all he was scared shitless about being rejected.

This was Christmas that was on the line, and Baekhyu had always loved Christmas, which was exactly why the last thing he wanted was to add a bad memory to it. Being turned down by Chanyeol would surely do that. And of course, if he’d spend it with Chanyeol it would possibly add a lot of great memories to the ones he already had, but Baekhyun wasn’t sure it was worth the risk.

Yet, while he contemplated this all, he missed how Minseok had actually grown a lot more quiet. It was the first night where he wasn’t getting jumped every moment of peace he had, it was the first night that Minseok didn’t keep sending him a pouty face whenever Baekhyun would look at him. It should have been a warning sign, but instead Baekhyun was just very relieved.

Really, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but it still did. It took forever for him to realise exactly why Minseok had let go of his determination, because after all, his friend had set his mind on turning his and Chanyeol’s story into a fairytale and he would do anything to make that happen. It was an unusual thing for him to give up, yet it didn’t actually make sense until he read the text he received while they were having their final drinks, having closed up the bar half an hour before.

 

[Chanyeol]:

**What are you doing for Christmas?**

 

Baekhyun stared at it without really processing whatever meaning could be behind the words. The question alone was enough to get the wheels in Baekhyun’s mind turning, and he stopped Kyungsoo mid-story to throw his towel at Minseok’s head. “Fuck you,” he barged in, “you always have to get your nose in my business, don’t you?”

The outburst got Kyungsoo to sit a little straighter, clearly ready to protect his boyfriend if it was needed, but Minseok seemed to think he was harmless. He rolled his eyes at Baekhyun and shrugged, “really Baek, please go see Chanyeol and get laid again, okay? You were so much nicer for a few days, but now you’re back to being rude.”

“Me?!” Baekhyun threw back with a huff, raising his eyebrows as he shoved the phone in Minseok’s face, “I’m being rude? You’re being rude, going against my wishes and telling Chanyeol about Christmas. That’s just so- ugh, can’t you let me decide anything on my own?”

He knew he was being dramatic, knew maybe Minseok was a tiny bit right about the tension in Baekhyun’s wound-up body, but he wouldn’t give his friend that satisfaction. Whether overdramatic or not, it didn’t change the fact that he was angry at Minseok for how he kept going behind Baekhyun’s back with these things.

For the first time though, Minseok actually looked like he was at a loss. There was no smug smile or cheeky comment, only confusion when Baekhyun pulled the screen away again before his friend could do something more stupid, like take it from him to answer instead.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Minseok was shooting him a glare, looking just as frustrated as Baekhyun felt, “you think I made Chanyeol send that? Because I didn’t.”

“It has to be. It’s just too much of a coincidence how you keep telling me to talk to him about Christmas, and then he suddenly asks me? You’ve always been meddling in our relationship, so why can’t this be your doing?” Baekhyun threw it all out, hands thrown in the air before he dropped them by his side.

“Yeah, because you two were fucking blind before, but you’re not anymore. Why would I want to dictate your whole relationship?” Minseok fairly pointed out, “yes, I think you’re a fucking idiot for not having asked him. I think it’s bloody good he’s asking you, but I had no part in this. I’m your best friend, Baekhyun. I’ve never lied about this shit before, why would I now?”

Guilt washed over Baekhyun instantly, and as he stared at his phone again he realised he may have taken it a bit too far. He had taken it out on Minseok when really his friend didn’t deserve it, whether he had done anything or not. Baekhyun shouldn’t have let his own fears turn him to use anger.

“Watch out what you’re saying, Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo’s threatening voice sounded next, telling Baekhyun, “don’t forget who I am.” A reminder of Kyungsoo’s reputation. A reminder of D.O Kyungsoo, and an actual threat. God, Baekhyun felt even worse now.

He didn’t tell them, though, felt too embarrassed to apologise this quickly. So, instead of saying more that could make things worse, Baekhyun raised his phone and started typing a reply.

 

[Baekhyun]:

**Why are you even awake? You have work tomorrow, go sleep you dumbass.**

**Nothing. Minseok closes the bar on Christmas day as well as Christmas Eve.**

**Why?**

Chanyeol’s reply came quickly, making Baekhyun’s heartbeat double within only seconds. The words he read were warm and made Baekhyun want to hide his face behind his hands. A little shy with how a simple text affected him so much, Baekhyun was really glad that his crush wasn’t there to see his face.

 

[Chanyeol]:

**I woke up to talk to you.**

**Was thinking about you anyway.**

**I’m spending it alone as well…**

 

Baekhyun stared at the dots behind Chanyeol’s final sentence, thinking of what it could imply. What was he trying to say with that? Was he suggesting what Baekhyun hoped he was suggesting? Was he trying to get Baekhyun to take the final step and ask him now? It could be anything, and he really hated how he couldn’t read the tone behind the words.

Before he could think of a proper response, before he could answer his questions, his phone buzzed again as he received another text from Chanyeol. One that cleared it all up.

 

[Chanyeol]:

**I know it might be a little early, with how little time we’ve had since we got together**

**But I was wondering if maybe you’d want to spend Christmas with me?**

**It’s okay if you don’t, I will understand, but I thought if we were both going to be alone maybe it would be nicer to spend it together.**

 

‘Since we got together’.

Baekhyun dropped his head on his arms and squealed quietly, trying not to draw Minseok’s attention to him, but as he looked up again it seemed like his friends had never even looked away from him in the first place.

“What?” Baekhyun’s throat was tight, his heart beating fast, “he said ‘since we got together’, alright? Give me a break.” He was sure it would make Minseok throw another party, but his friend kept quiet this time. He smiled, a genuine and happy smile, but he turned to Kyungsoo then instead, taking his hand to hold between his own.

To Baekhyun, it kind of looked like he was saying ‘my job here is done’.

More than just mentioning them ‘being together’, Chanyeol was asking Baekhyun to spend Christmas with him. Chanyeol was worried he would say no, or had at least considered it, and that was stupid. How could he think Baekhyun would say no to such a thing? Well, maybe in the same way Baekhyun had worried about getting rejected as well.

They were really both idiots, Minseok was right about that.

 

[Baekhyun]:

**Okay. Let’s do that.**

**It would be nice to actually have a Christmas tree around for Christmas.**

 

After another moment he added something else, a little bit like an afterthought, just because he wanted to.

 

[Baekhyun]:

**Are we doing presents?**

[Chanyeol]:

**We could if you want to. Just something small, though. Don’t spend all your money on me, okay?**

[Baekhyun]:

**I’m not that damn poor, Chanyeol.**

**I feel offended, honestly.**

[Chanyeol]:

**I never meant it like that!**

**Only trying to say I’ll be happy with whatever, no matter how small. It’s the thought that counts, right?**

 

Baekhyun smiled at that, realising how thoughtful it was that Chanyeol was trying to keep his situation in mind. It wasn’t that he didn’t have money to spend on a present, it wasn’t like he didn’t want to spend it either, but Chanyeol still tried to make sure that he wouldn’t feel troubled.

 

[Baekhyun]:

**Ah, I see, so I can expect something like a plush toy or a pack of toothbrushes?**

[Chanyeol]:

**Ha ha, very funny. You better stop before I won’t get you anything at all.**

**Oh and by the way…**

**Does that mean you’ll get here on Christmas Eve and will stay the night?**

 

Oh god, Chanyeol was truly trying to make him have a heart attack, wasn’t he? Saying all those things about being together, then Christmas and now spending the night. Really, Baekhyun’s heart was beating out of his damn chest and he was freaking out as he thought about how suggestive that was.

Memories of naked skin against naked skin filled his mind, and he squeezed his eyes shut against them, even though that only made them that more apparent. He swallowed, then whined quietly and he told his friends, “he’s asking if I’ll stay the night on Christmas Eve. Will that- should I think of that as a hint to more than just spending the night, or?”

Minseok actually laughed at his question, trying to muffle the sound against his shoulder, and even Kyungsoo was smiling at his torn up face. “Not necessarily,” the prince from hell said, “it’s just an invitation to stay over, and maybe that will lead to something more, but it doesn’t have to. So make sure you bring your cutest lingerie, but don’t expect to have it be taken off.”

Baekhyun laughed at the mention of lingerie, and he knew he was going to go red before it actually happened. God, Chanyeol was making him so soft and embarrassed, it was a little strange to feel this all the time, especially considering he had been a heartless demon not too long ago. Love was an odd thing.

 

[Baekhyun]:

**I guess?**

**If you don’t mind?**

[Chanyeol]:

**Of course I don’t.**

**Toben won’t either, I’m sure of it.**

**Make sure to bring a toothbrush this time ^^**

The comment made Baekhyun chuckle and roll his eyes, smiling fondly at the memory. He could laugh at it now that he had gotten what he wanted, now that he knew for now a fourth toothbrush would not be taken from Chanyeol’s emergency pack.

He was the third, the one currently in use, and he hoped that Chanyeol would never get tired of seeing that toothbrush in the cup next to his. He hoped he could make this work, that it would bring them both the happiness they longed for.

 

[Baekhyun]:

**Okay, I will. Dork.**

**Can’t wait to see you again :3**

[Chanyeol]:

**There you were calling me a dork and then you go and :3 me…**

**Me neither, Baek.**

**I’ll see you soon, promise.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You won't believe how much of a ride this fic is gonna be still. From a 7k [M] rated chapter to angsty shit. It's all happening. 
> 
> Or, soon then ;-) 


	21. Winter heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he finally walked into the hallway that led to Chanyeol’s apartment, he saw that he didn’t even have to knock, because his boyfriend was already waiting for him at the door.  
> For a moment it reminded Baekhyun of how he had walked away once, without looking back either, and now it kind of felt like he was rewinding that moment. Instead of walking to the elevator, he walked out of it. Instead of pulling himself free from Chanyeol’s arms, he welcomed their embrace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome, to Christmas in the middle of March :---) Hope you're ready for fluff!

~

 

 

Once Minseok closed the bar, still hours before it could officially be called Christmas eve, Baekhyun was up and out of his apron within minutes. It all went according to plan still, almost to the minute, and that was good. That gave Baekhyun some space to breathe for a little while.

He had made sure to work efficiently all day, to clean up the bar whenever he could, all so he didn't have to stay behind later than usual. Because even though he had been preparing since Chanyeol asked him over for Christmas, he still had plenty to get ready. First off, he was in desperate need of a shower after which he’d have to get dressed, as well as wrap his gift.

Baekhyun could just chill out and take his time going home and doing all those things, because he had all the time in the world. And part of him wanted to not bother with half of the tasks on his list, because most of all he just wanted to go see Chanyeol. But at the same time Baekhyun wanted everything to be perfect. So in order for him to have everything be exactly the way he wanted it to be, and to still arrive at Chanyeol’s as soon as possible, he had come up with a precise plan.

"Baekhyun!" Minseok called after him once Baekhyun was about to disappear through the staffroom door, ready to move on to the next part of his schedule. "Where are you going? We need to count all the stock before we can go?" his boss told him, as if reminding Baekhyun of something they had discussed before. Baekhyun was pretty sure they hadn't, that or maybe he had been too caught up in Chanyeol to notice it. Either way: fuck.

"What? But, but I-" he started, feeling panic rise instantly as he thought of his carefully crafted plan and how it was about to fall apart. The idea to have everything he had thought of to just be turned into a night of counting stock, god, that would be the worst.

"I thought I- there's still stuff I-" he stuttered, feeling stupid unwanted tears well up in his eyes, and that made Minseok's smile disappear within an instant. His friend rushed over, face worried while he uttered an apology, "I'm sorry, I was only joking Baek," he pulled Baekhyun against him as the tears came rolling down his cheeks, "I know you have plans, I didn't mean to make you freak out."

To know he looked that sad that Minseok gave up on playing him after nothing but a few seconds, Baekhyun kind of felt weak. The apology made him feel so relieved too, and he realised that he had actually been scared that he would have had to stay for another few hours before he could have finally gone to spend the final few hours of Christmas Eve with his boyfriend.

But Minseok had been joking, and Baekhyun would get to go and follow the detailed schedule he had come up with. "Okay, it's okay," He replied before be pulled away from the hug, "you made me lose two minutes, though. Your ass is going to pay for it one day," he told his best friend, not even sounding threatening at all, before he finally barged through the door to the staff room.

Minseok followed him as he went to get his coat, "you're so weird when you're like this. I'm glad I won't have to see you get dressed and everything. I'm sure you've picked the outfit already though, right?" He was making a joke of it, the way Minseok always did when it came to Chanyeol and Baekhyun, but to Baekhyun it was anything but.

"Worse yet,” he admitted to it easily, no point in denying, “I've laid it all out on my bed so I can easily put it on. Also my make up is ready and my present is already placed next to the wrapping paper, along with a pair of scissors and tape. All I need to do is walk in and get going." 

"You're insane. All for a few minutes more of Chanyeol?" Minseok asked, his eyebrows raised high as he handed Baekhyun his mittens, as if he was trying to make up for the two lost minutes he had caused. Baekhyun nodded as he took them and he put them on while he smiled at his friend, "Chanyeol and Christmas. I've been waiting for this moment, for a moment like this, ever since I got this body. And now it's here." 

It was quiet for a minute then, as if his friend was finally realising the point Baekhyun had been trying to make. He stared at Baekhyun as he continued getting ready to leave, and then he smiled. "I'm really happy for you," Minseok told him as he leaned against the wall, arms crossed, "that you finally have someone who makes you feel as crazy about them as I am about Kyungsoo." 

The comment made Baekhyun chuckle, thinking of how close he had come to spending Christmas with those two idiots. If he hadn’t had Chanyeol he would have been alone, and Baekhyun wasn’t sure that in that case he would have been able to keep refusing Minseok’s offer. Still, he was glad they’d both get the Christmas they longed for.

"Ain't you glad that I'm not spending it with you two?" Baekhyun laughed while he put on his hat as well, winking at Minseok as he did so. His friend smiled in return, clearly getting what Baekhyun was referring to, and he shrugged, "with or without you there, I'm going to have a fun night either way. I wouldn't have stopped from jumping my boyfriend's sexy body just because you'd be two doors down."

The way Minseok said it was so carefree, like he didn’t give a shit that his best friend didn’t want to have that kind of information. "Oh god," Baekhyun groaned, "I'm so glad that I will not be there." To which Minseok was quick to reply with, "of course not, you're going to be doing the exact same thing. Don't lie to me!"

Baekhyun plugged in his earphones as he walked to the door, straight past Minseok, and he replied with a loud, "Alright, time for me to leave before you become even more inappropriate!" He laughed at his friend as he pushed open the door and walked out without waiting for a reply.

Minseok followed him up to the doorway, and he ended up leaning against the door as Baekhyun started to walk away. He wasn’t going to let his friend get away without embarrassing him some more, it seemed, because Baekhyun felt himself cringe the second he heard Minseok’s voice again.

"Be safe! And have fun, enjoy the magic of Christmas. Don't do anything I wouldn't do either. Bye Baek!" He kept yelling at Baekhyun until the boy had finally turned the corner. Then with his smile pressed into his scarf and his hands in his pockets, Baekhyun walked home.

The song in his ears was the song he had listened to the night he had run into Chanyeol, the gloves he was wearing were the ones he had worn the night Chanyeol took him home for the first time. It was all meant to bring him luck, to make sure he would receive the best possible Christmas, whether it would help at all or not, Baekhyun had thought it all through.

He was ready, for whatever Christmas would bring him. Him and Chanyeol. His boyfriend Chanyeol. 

~

Dressed in black jeans and a red knitted sweater, the brightest piece of clothing in his closet, Baekhyun eventually left his apartment. He had been a lot quicker than he had expected, mostly because he hadn’t really put on a lot of make-up. Whereas his usual work look took a good fifteen minutes, now he had finished within five. He hadn’t wanted to overdo his look, he had only wanted to look a little less tired and a little prettier than his bare face.  

Swung over his should was a bag with some of his things with among them the wrapped up presents, bow and all. It was still pretty cold out, but Baekhyun wasn’t wearing a hat this time because he really did not want to ruin his hair before getting to Chanyeol’s apartment. His scarf and mittens would have to do tonight, and part of him felt stupid for actually having put so much effort into this. He just hoped that it wouldn’t go to waste.

By now his stomach was rumbling, upset with him for not having snacked anything while getting ready, and so he rushed, knowing Chanyeol would be waiting for him with food ready. Baekhyun was excited, felt like this was ultimately their first date as well as their first holidays together, and it would be memorable whether it would go well or not. He just really hoped things wouldn’t be awkward, that they could continue the same way they had done for the past week or so.

Since Chanyeol has showed up at his apartment, they had met up twice more and had texted a whole lot. It was a bit tough with their mixed schedules, because Chanyeol worked during the day while Baekhyun worked at night, but then there were always their days off where they could find a way to be together. They had both put in effort, not just Baekhyun alone.

Opening the door to Chanyeol’s apartment complex, Baekhyun was welcomed with warmth and a splotch of red next to Chanyeol’s buzzer. The tiny heart-shaped sticker had an elegantly written ‘B’ in the middle and it was right next to his boyfriend’s name.

Baekhyun smiled at it, shaking his head as he thought of how much of a dork Chanyeol was. Sure, Baekhyun’s first impression of Park Chanyeol being tall, handsome and smart was very fitting, but the idiot was more than that. He was such a sappy romantic too, and truly a comedian at heart. He was pure and cute and Baekhyun occasionally felt like the taller beat him in whatever angelic qualities he was supposed to have.

“It’s B,” he spoke into the intercom once he heard Chanyeol’s, “hello hello?” on the other side. “Buzz me in, you ass,” Baekhyun chuckled when he received no reply. A second later he heard how the door opened, and he quickly walked over to get through it.

As he made his way up to Chanyeol’s floor, he checked himself once more in the mirror to see if there were no make-up smudges, no food between his teeth, and then he stuck his mittens in his pockets and zipped open his coat while he waited for the elevator doors to open again.

When he finally walked into the hallway that led to Chanyeol’s apartment, he saw that he didn’t even have to knock, because his boyfriend was already waiting for him at the door.

For a moment it reminded Baekhyun of how he had walked away once, without looking back either, and now it kind of felt like he was rewinding that moment. Instead of walking to the elevator, he walked out of it. Instead of pulling himself free from Chanyeol’s arms, he welcomed their embrace.

His boyfriend was warm, so warm that his cheek felt hot to the touch as it came into contact with Baekhyun’s while they hugged. He could feel the warmth of his lover’s breath in the crook of his neck, and it made it Baekhyun got goosebumps all over.

The hug didn’t last long, because soon enough Chanyeol pulled back in order to actually kiss the shorter’s lips. It was chaste, the cold probably surprising him, but Chanyeol was smiling when he drew back, taking Baekhyun’s hands which were thankfully slightly warmer than the rest of him, “hi you, I’ve been waiting.”

“I know, I came as fast as I could, as promised. Minseok was trying to be funny though, telling me I had to stay overtime to count what we had in stock,” Baekhyun explained as he took off his scarf, having handed his bag to Chanyeol. His boyfriend put it down for him before he turned to take a hold of the collar of Baekhyun’s coat, ready to help him shrug out of it.

Once he took it off, the shorter looked up at his boyfriend, smiling as he got a whiff of the smell that hung around them, “you made Baechu Doenjang Guk?” he asked, remembering the first time Chanyeol had come to his apartment, the night he admitted the truth. Or, a version of the truth.

“Not really,” his boyfriend shook his head with a soft smile, “I asked the same people who I bought it from before if they could get me a special delivery. I told them it was to surprise my love for his first proper Christmas and so they agreed.”

The way Chanyeol called him ‘my love’ was enough for Baekhyun to both melt a little as well as his heart to freeze before doubling the speed of its beating. The fact that he had actually bothered to get the same soup as that first night just proved again how much of a romantic Chanyeol was.

“You’re so…” Baekhyun started, but he had no words to finish it with. He didn’t know how to explain everything going on in his mind, so he didn’t bother. They’d be standing there until morning if he’d try. Instead he picked up his bag and took a hold of Chanyeol’s arm, “neverind. Time to put the presents underneath the tree.”

They walked into the living room together, where Toben came to greet Baekhyun straight away. Baekhyun shouldn’t have been surprised to see that the dog was wearing a Christmas themed collar with a loud chiming bell attached to it that filled the room along with his barking. He jumped around until he reached Baekhyun’s leg and the fallen one smiled, “hey curly boy, let me put away the presents first.”

He knew he was talking to the dog, Chanyeol knew too, and it made him laugh at Baekhyun, who let him make fun of him. He knew the taller one only thought it was cute how Baekhyun felt so comfortable around his dog and how nice it was that Toben adored him too. Apparently Toben was usually very disinterested in people that came over, so to see a change when it came to Baekhyun, that was surprising.

“He’s been just as excited as I am, as if he knew you were coming. Stupid dog,” Chanyeol chuckled as he watched Baekhyun get on his knees to put the three presents he had underneath the tree. Toben was right at his side, first to jump at him but then to sniff at the presents instead. He lingered on the one meant for him, tail wagging back and forth as he barked once, and Baekhyun smiled as he finally ruffled his fingers through the dog’s fur.

“He’s cute. It’s no wonder they say dogs are like their owner,” Baekhyun argued before he dropped a kiss to Toben’s head and got up. Turning back to Chanyeol he saw how his boyfriend’s eyes were on the presents, and sure enough, only seconds later he heard what he had been expecting to hear.

“Three presents?!” Chanyeol burst, eyebrows so far up they almost touched his hairline, “I thought we agreed to one, and a small one at that. You have three of which one is definitely medium sized. That’s not fair!” He crossed his arms, looking like a toddler, and Baekhyun chuckled as he rolled his eyes.

He had seen Chanyeol’s present under the tree already, the package small and beautifully wrapped, like a professional had done it rather than someone as inexperienced as Baekhyun. “Well,” he promised, “none are that big. One isn’t for you anyway, and one is just- no, I’m not saying. Just trust me, alright?”

With hands held up in surrender, Bekhyun made his way back over to Chanyeol, who sighed as he surrendered before he held out a hand for his boyfriend. “Fine, I won’t mind, as long as you don’t mind that I really just got you one small present,” Chanyeol’s mouth was pulled in a strange kind of straight line, making his ears move up and down slightly, and it looked so cute the way he was confused and a tad worried about Baekhyun thinking wrongly of him.

“That’s okay, I’m happy I’m getting anything at all,” Baekhyun smiled at his boyfriend as he took the outstretched hand and let himself be whisked away to the kitchen. The last time he had been there was when he had cut himself, when he had asked Chanyeol that one question that had pushed them apart but ultimately pulled them closer together as well.

This time, the kitchen was dimply lit with only a few candles to light the table, and there was soft Christmas music to help set the mood. Baekhyun recognised the song, an English one, and the whole display in front of him made him feel like it was truly Christmas. The spirit he had so often felt with other families, he now got to feel it himself.

Chanyeol made him sit down and helped push in his chair before he went to the stove and got the soup Baekhyun had smelled the minute he had arrived. The table had been set to perfection, and Baekhyun realised he wasn’t the only one who had been preparing up to the details of it all.

“Alright, I hope you’re hungry because I have a lot of food,” Chanyeol said as he set down the soup in the middle of the table, straightening himself again after, and Baekhyun grinned as he saw how ridiculous Chanyeol looked like that. His hands were in the air, covered in oven mittens, and he looked both excited and nervous as he smiled at Baekhyun.

It helped Baekhyun relax, made him shy because of the effort the idiot had put into this, and he realised once again that their combined effort was what made them work. This thing between them, it wasn’t just one sided, it ran both ways.

Feeling the warmth in his heart spread throughout his whole body, heating up his frozen toes, he laughed warmly at Chanyeol’s question and nodded, “you have no idea. I’m absolutely starving.”

~

After dinner they settled down on the couch. The music that had been playing while they had been in the kitchen was brought back with them, the soft sounds of the guitar added to it as Chanyeol had picked up his acoustic before sitting down next to Baekhyun.

He played Baekhyun 'have yourself a Merry little Christmas' and 'white Christmas', singing along softly with his low voice, and then he put down the guitar and wrapped his arms around Baekhyun's shoulders. The move caught Beakhyun off guard a little, for the way Chanyeol was pulling him into his chest came out of nowhere, but he managed to catch the yelp that had tried to escape from his throat and he just held on to his boyfriend.

Chanyeol groaned as he dropped his head to Baekhyun’s shoulder, his chest pressed against the shorter’s back, and the words he brought out were a little muffled against the fallen one’s sweater, "your eyes seriously sparkle like Christmas lights.”

It made Baekhyun feel warm, made him snuggle closer into the embrace, and he laughed lowly as he replied with an, "it's truly a miracle how I managed to run into a dork like you." The words made Chanyeol tighten his hold on him, something that in return made Baekhyun's heart almost burst. Almost.

"You literally ran in to me. Or I literally ran into you, I'm not sure," Chanyeol said then, hooking his chin over Baekhyun's shoulder so he could be heard. His fingers were playing with the knitted sweater, Baekhyun could feel the way the movement even though Chanyeol wasn't trying to touch him. 

Thinking back to that moment weeks ago now, Baekhyun found the courage to open up a little more. "I used to dread coming across someone who knew Jaehyun, it's why I never went anywhere near Anyang," he admitted, "but I have to admit that I'm happy I did run into you. I was proven wrong." 

"Good," Chanyeol hummed, "and I mean, it's not like it wasn't a surprise for me either. Running into you, thinking you were Jaehyun, I had expected that moment to be very different.” His boyfriend didn’t sound very affected by the memory, but then again Baekhyun couldn’t see his face. “You see all those drama, and it kind of felt like it was supposed to be such a huge moment. It was a huge moment, but not one where two lovers fall into each other's arms the way I always see on TV. Although I'm not sure that even if you had really been him, if it would have been any different.”

Baekhyun didn't answer, didn't have to either because Chanyeol was moving, turning him sideways slightly so their eyes could meet. Baekhyun expected to see sorrow and regret there, but what he found was anything but that. Instead of pain, there was such a genuine feeling of love on display in Chanyeol's deep brown eyes that told Baekhyun how he was being admired. It told him how he was being appreciated, and that was more than Baekhyun could have wished for. 

"You were such a mystery to me," Chanyeol spoke, "like a puzzle needing to be solved. And the more pieces I find, the better the image becomes and the more I like it. This Christmas, more than anything, I am thankful for the fact that I got a chance to play that game. I am grateful for how you keep handing me puzzle pieces, for how you want me to find them."

God, was Chanyeol good at this. Truly, he could so easily take on the job of an angel, with the way he seemed to be wired to love. It was in his everything. His eyes, his hands and his words, they all spoke of love. He knew very well that Chanyeol had a lot of love to give, and to be one of the recipients of that... it was Baekhyun who should be grateful that Chanyeol didn't hate him after everything he had done. 

In the end he was still the one who had taken the body of the taller's ex-boyfriend. He had been the one to ruin whatever they could have had together. But then again, Jaehyun had been dead anyway, and it would have only been a waste. 

Baekhyun shook his head, trying to get himself out of regrets and useless thoughts of the past. What could have been no longer was, and now he had no reason to hold back from accepting Chanyeol's love and grow some of his own as well.  

As Chanyeol kissed him, soft and sweet like the feeling of his fingers pressed to Baekhyun's skin, Baekhyun thought back to the conversation he had had with Minseok a few days earlier.

 

_"Minseok," Baekhyun started as they were quietly cleaning the bar together, the music around them soft enough to start a conversation. Baekhyun was tired, but he hadn't been able to stop thinking all night, and he knew he had to ask this before he'd leave work that night if he wanted any peace of mind, "how do you know whether you're in love or not?"_

_Minseok wasn't startled by his question, or so it appeared. He barely even paused his cleaning, hand only stopping for a second before he picked back up where he left off, only bringing out an, "ah,” at first._

_He finished the task at hand before he straightened himself and turning to face Baekhyun, "that's a difficult question to answer, and I guess it's different for everyone." Then he walked up to his friend, smiling softly as if he knew what it was like to be in Baekhyun's shoes right now._

_"For me, I can't remember not being in love with Kyungsoo. I think, for me, it was not really a difference in what I felt inside. A crush is as powerful as actual love, because it is exciting and new, but love isn't really that. I mean, not new at least… it can still be exciting."_

_Minseok laughed at himself then, as if he realised he was making a mess of his words a little bit. It was okay though, because Baekhyun knew that love wasn't as easy to humans as it was to angels. Angels were born to love, whereas for humans it was a process of growth that took time._

_Baekhyun gave a nod, hoping it would encourage his best friend to go on, and it did. "What I remember is how at first, when you just start dating, it's very physical, right? Kissing can give you butterflies, a single touch can make your heart lose control, but it's mostly just that. It's physical more than anything," Minseok tried to explain, making Baekhyun relive a handful of memories with his words._

_The way Chanyeok had pressed him to the wall and had tipped his chin sideways to confirm he was Jaehyun. Even back then his heart had already been betraying him. He had been crushing on Chanyeol from the very start, unbeknown to himself._

_"But then, when you've been together for a while, things start to change. You will get used to the kisses, you will get used to each other's bodies and what the other likes. It doesn't mean you lose that spark, but it's not as new and adventurous anymore," Minseok continued, leaning on the bar as he spoke._

_"That's when things become different. You run out of easy things to talk about and truly get to know each other, and that's what will determine whether you're in it for the long run or will break up eventually. Emotions, Baek, are more important than physical love. I'm sure you know that, but I'm saying it because I think you can't say you truly love someone until you've reached that point."_

 

 

Minseok had been right about that. For now Chanyeol and he were still in the first phase of their relationship: that of affection. The fact that they were allowed to touch, to kiss and make love and to word the feelings those brought, it was only the start. That ‘cloud nine’ feeling, that floating feeling Baekhyun adored, it wasn't yet love. It was something simpler and a lot purer, untainted by first fights and annoyance. 

Baekhyun knew he'd have to treasure it too, because a time as carefree as this only came around twice. Once at the start of a relationship and once after a wedding ceremony. Seen as how Baekhyun doubted he would ever get that second chance, he knew he had to enjoy it now.

"You're welcome, Park Chanyeol," Baekhyun finally replied, realising a lot of time had passed between their words. Chanyeol didn't seem to mind, he just leaned into Baekhyun for a while longer, enjoying the closeness between them. 

The peaceful moment could only last that long though, and the end of the Christmas playlist that filled the room with silence was enough for them both to chuckle. "Well, guess it's time for new music," Baekhyun laughed as he straightened, making Chanyeol's arms fall away from him. 

Chanyeol got up when there was enough space between them, but rather than starting a new playlist, he walked up to the Christmas tree. Toben followed him instantly, having spotted the movement from his place at the foot of the couch. "No,” his boyfriend finally responded to Baekhyun’s words, just as slow in his answering as Baekhyun himself had been.

“I think it's time I give you my present," his boyfriend argued next, picking up the tiny package Baekhyun had seen when he had put down his own. In the time Baekhyun dealt with the shock he felt, trying to look for words to use, his boyfriend had already walked over to him again.

He was holding out the present for Baekhyun to take, but the fallen one just blinked up at him, then opened his mouth, "but- but, Chanyeol, aren't we supposed to wait for Christmas morning?" Chanyeol shrugged at that, "screw that. I'm impatient. I want you to wake up tomorrow and cuddle me a little tighter, not get up to unwrap these few small presents. We can do it now." 

As his boyfriend sat down, Baekhyun stood up bringing out a loud, "wait!” He continued as he stormed to the tree, falling to his knees there, “let's at least do one of mine first then. And I'll leave one for tomorrow anyway, I want to." His outburst made Chanyeol cock an eyebrow at him, but he stayed seated and let Baekhyun do his thing. 

The fallen one took the present for Toben first, starting with the least interesting gift. It was a simple leash, nothing big and bright, but it included a tiny bone-shaped plate that could be attached to the collar and that had Toben's name carved into it.

He handed the present to Chanyeol, stating, "this is for Toben." The dog came skipping over at the mentioning of its name, and Chanyeol patted the empty spot next to him on the couch to get Toben to jump up. "Come on boy, you've got a present! Look how thoughtful Baekhyun was to bring you something too. You better thank him with lots of kisses later, alright?" As if he understood, Toben barked and stuck his nose against the wrapping paper.

Chanyeol was quick to unwrap it, and even though it was literally a cheap gift that had been an afterthought more than anything, Baekhyun's boyfriend still looked at him as if it was the best gift he had ever received. "It's so cute!" He brought out as he looked at the bone with Toben's name, "how sweet of you. It will look so nice on him. We can put it on him tomorrow when we'll walk him." 

The excitement Chanyeol showed left the room around them buzzing with energy and it made Baekhyun feel slightly less worried about his other presents and whether Chanyeol would like them or not. He smiled back at his boyfriend, hands folded in his lap, and gave a quick nod of his head, "it's fine. Toben is a part of your family, so I wanted to get him something as well." 

"It's not like he realises that, though," Chanyeol argued with a smile as he helped Toben off the couch and then moved to pick up his own present, which he had put down on the table. He sat back with it in his hands, staring at it for another moment, as if he was suddenly no longer sure of whether he should give it or not. 

"I uh-," Chanyeol started eventually, bringing one hand up to scratch himself behind the ear, "I hope you like this. If you don't that’s okay as well, I still have the receipt and you can always exchange it for a different one or return it altogether." He smiled a little sheepishly then, handing the present to Baekhyun while he looked away from him.

Baekhyun carefully took a hold of the package, which was long and square, and he waited for Chanyeol to acknowledge him again before he went to open it. It took a while, but finally his boyfriend's eyes moved up to his again. Whatever was visible in Baekhyun's eyes, it made Chanyeol hold his gaze rather than turn away once more, and it was only then that Baekhyun let himself endulge in his curiosity.  

With a swift pull the ribbon around the package came undone, and Baekhyun didn't break eye contact with Chanyeol until that moment. He would have kept his eyes up, but as it was he had to look down to actually open the present and see what was inside, so he couldn't stare at Chanyeol forever. When Baekhyun opened the box in his lap he saw a black silk strap covered in white lettering, a delicate clasp at both ends, and he realised soon enough what it was.

A choker. Chanyeol had gotten him a choker for Christmas, a pretty one that looked handmade. Baekhyun was sure it hadn't been cheap, and that meant he wasn't the only one that had broken their rule about presents. 

"Chanyeol..." Baekhyun whispered, his fingers grazing over the fabric softly, "you-" he didn't really know what to say in reply, and he was kind of thankful Chanyeol helped him out with it.

"I often see you wearing these, you seem to really like them," Chanyeol said as he took the choker from its box and held it between his fingers. He moved then, as if getting on his knees to help Baekhyun put it on, and the move startled the fallen one so much that he backed away a little.

His hand reached up to cover the choker currently in place, the simple one he wore most of the time, and he knew it was a bad move. He knew his brain had betrayed him, that now he'd have to explain, and he tried to cover it up even though it was probably pointless. "I uh, I'll put it on later, I don't want to make a fuss...but thank you, Yeol." 

Chanyeol didn't really seem fazed by his move, it was almost as if he had expected it, and Baekhyun felt more worried when he didn't immediately received a reply to his weak apology. Chanyeol just sat there, choker still in hand, staring at Baekhyun as if he was trying to understand why the fallen one was acting this way.

He sighed then, tearing his eyes away from Baekhyun's face, and Baekhyun actually felt his heart sink when Chanyeol opened his mouth again, "I already know, Baekhyun. We slept together, you weren't wearing anything that night. I didn't say anything because I wanted you to open up about it yourself, but I saw the scar."

It was uncomfortably quiet once Chanyeol finished, and Baekhyun truly felt like he had been caught in his lie already. As if Chanyeol knew that the whole story Baekhyun had told him about Jaehyun's death had been fake. However, as Baekhyun allowed himself a few moments to think, he realised that if his boyfriend was truly aware of how he had lied, then he would have confronted Baekhyun right away. 

He hadn't, which to Baekhyun showed that his boyfriend was waiting for an explanation he could believe rather than for himself to jump to any conclusions. It was admirable, the way Chanyeol had managed to hold his questions for so long, and it gave Baekhyun the strength somehow to move a little closer.

He sighed, bringing up his hands to the back of his neck so his fingers could find the clasp of the band wrapped around his neck. He fiddled with it for a while, but eventually it came off, and as he put it aside he felt very naked. More so than he had done when he had truly been naked, in bed with Chanyeol’s hand roaming his skin.

With the tattoo on one wrist and his watch or bracelet on the other, no one ever really noticed the marks there, but it was the neck that was most difficult to hide. Even though the scar itself wasn't that big, it was still very visible and after a few weeks where Baekhyun had gotten question after question about what had happened to him, he had decided to cover up altogether. 

Along with his overall dark clothes it had added a bit of mystery to his look, something that usually worked in his favour very well. He had grown to like himself with a strap around his neck, and not only because it looked good. In a way it made him feel better not having to look at the stretched skin that reminded him of someone else every time he looked in a mirror. 

"I'm sorry," Baekhyun said after he swallowed the lump in his throat. He tried to hold his head high, allowing Chanyeol to look at the scar again, this time with better lighting than his boyfriend had had the night they had slept together, "I didn't want to hurt you with it, because things still felt so strange. Talking about Jaehyun felt awkward." 

He let Chanyeol lean in, let his index finger trace the line of the scar that Baekhyun knew so well now. He had tried a ton of creams that supposedly helped scar tissue, had tried make-up to make it disappear as well, but none of it worked well. There was no way to hide it, to make it fade, and he had come to accept that. It was just that he wanted things to work with Chanyeol, and that meant that he could not be caught lying. 

"He got it in the accident," Baekhyun made up, although it was only the truth wrapped up in a veil to prevent any more damage from being done. It was bad enough as it was, and Chanyeol was finally moving on, so why bother clearing up some little white lies. Okay, they weren't exactly little, but still. 

"It looks like that was painful," Chanyeol spoke very quietly, still staring at Baekhyun's neck, and the comment made Baekhyun almost laugh. Almost, because it wasn't exactly appropriate in this situation. They were talking about Chanyeol’s ex-lover after all. "I don't know, I’m not the one that experienced it, but I guess so," the fallen one said just as softly. 

Chanyeol hummed then, sitting back slightly as he looked away from the scar, and Baekhyun moved his head so he could watch his boyfriend pick up his present with both hands again. So he believed him then. He wasn’t angry with Baekhyun for keeping this from him, he still wanted Baekhyun to wear his present too.

So this time, Baekhyun sat very still as Chanyeol advanced once more, leaning into his space to get the new choker tied around his neck. It took a few seconds for Chanyeol to clasp it shut, in which Baekhyun closed his eyes and breathed him in, but then he could feel the hands move away as the choker stayed in place.

Chanyeol took him in when he sat back, eyes travelling up and down his face and neck, and Baekhyun knew he probably looked a little weird lacking the confidence and mystery to make it work, but his boyfriend appeared to be thinking no such things. 

"Beautiful," he commented with a soft smile as his hand slipped into Baekhyun's, their fingers entwining. It was acceptance, Chanyeol was taking Baekhyun's apology and Baekhyun saw it as a way to move past this moment, even though they stayed like that for another minute or so. 

Baekhyun was desperate to give Chanyeol his own present though, and so he let go of the hand in his rather soon so he could push himself up, "I have two presents for you. I want to keep one of those for tomorrow, and the other you're getting now. It's- it's because this one isn't really _your_ present."

He picked up the biggest present that he had skillfully wrapped – in his opinion - with the help of an online tutorial, and he handed it over to Chanyeol before he sat down again, "I told you not to expect too much, right? Size doesn't say it all," he warned once more, making his boyfriend laugh out loud.

The air was considerably lighter again now, and Baekhyun actually felt the tension seep from between his shoulderblades as he leaned against the back of the couch. Chanyeol was focused on unwrapping though, his face lit up like the lights of his Christmas tree, and it was so cute that Baekhyun wanted to have his brain take a picture of this moment so he could remember it forever. 

When he got rid of the wrapping paper, Chanyeol looked rather surprised. He stared at his lap for a few seconds and then said, sounding as surprised as he looked, "pyjamas?" 

Taking the soft champagne-coloured pants in his hands and bringing them up to his face, Baekhyun chuckled, "well, like I said, it's not really a present for you. Because those are my size." He felt a soft blush rise up on his cheekbones as he spoke, hoping he wouldn't come across as rude, "I kind of didn't want to wear that crop top again tonight, and any other night I might spend over here, so I bought proper pyjamas that I can use when I'm here." 

Chanyeol snorted the second Baekhyun started talking about the t-shirt he had worm that night, probably remembering how tiny it had been on him, how hard it had been to get it off once he had sneaked into bed with him. The sound was adorable, but the bright grin Chanyeol threw him along with the words, "I was kind of hoping you wouldn't be wearing anything at all tonight," were killing. 

"Chanyeol!" Baekhyun hit his boyfriend's arm, which made the giant laugh even louder as he fell over on the couch. His face planted into the pillow, his ass on display right next to Baekhyun, there was only one thing the fallen one could do: torture him. 

He started hitting Chanyeol, slapping his ass at a rapid speed, until Chanyeol fell on the floor dying with laughter. "God, you're so dirty-minded! How often do you think about me naked, huh?" 

"Why are you blaming me for that? I can't help admiring beauty," Chanyeol threw back as he sat up, his hair having flipped over to the other side of his face due to his fall. He looked small from his spot on the floor, a slight pout on his face, and Baekhyun couldn't help but go soft at the sight. 

"Sure," he grumbled softly, "whatever. Behave yourself." He pushed Chanyeol back down once he tried to get up, to which he received a gasp that was full of betrayal. The way his boyfriend narrowed his eyes at him should have warned him that Baekhyun would only get to enjoy his victory for a few seconds, because that was when Chanyeol jumped up and on top of him, tickling him mercilessly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AlrigHT like I suddenly feel very stupid for all the fluff here, knowing what I know is gonna happen. My mind is currently in the angst phase, not the fluff phase. Anyway, for all of you who are still in the fuzzy mindset of Christmas, the next chapter will be absolutely [M] rated. Like, I wouldn't say it's pointless loving, cause love never is, but I could say 'pointlessly detailed' I guess :---) Either way, whether you're into it or not, it's coming. And then angst. A ton of it. 


	22. [M] Uncover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "See, the only reason I was on top of you was to watch," Baekhyun explained, using the same playful tone Chanyeol had used on him, "’cause it isn't fair, you know? How you know my body so well, but I don't know yours at all. I don't know what you like, what makes you go crazy or what I really shouldn't do when I have you underneath me like I do now."
> 
> And so Baekhyun decides to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING! 7k of blowjob smut. Skip if you're not into smut!! It's not necessarily needed to understand the rest of the story.  
> Anyway, here goes. Hope it's not cringeworthy >< *hides in embarrassment*

~

 

When Baekhyun woke up on Christmas morning, feeling warm and content and happy, Chanyeol was still asleep. His boyfriend lay next to him with his head turned towards Baekhyun, mouth hanging open slightly and lower lip drooping in the direction of the mattress. He had one arm thrown up above his head as the other rested on his stomach, which moved up and down on every inhale and exhale.

The duvet had slid down, revealing his body down to his hips where his stupid Iron Man shirt ended right above his hipbones. He looked like a child that way, with the childish superhero shirt, but Baekhyun actually admired his boyfriend for not caring what other people thought of his interests. And so the Iron Man shirt actually looked adorable on him rather than ridiculous. 

For once they weren't tangled up together, which was kind of a miracle, considering every other night they had spent together they had woken up impossibly warm from each other’s body heat. As Baekhyun blinked himself awake more he noticed that the reason they weren’t was probably becaue he had hogged the covers instead of Chanyeol, resulting in how his boyfriend was now half uncovered. 

Baekhyun wanted to kiss him so badly, but he didn't want to wake up the taller from his slumber, and so he refrained. He just lay there, watching, occasionally letting his fingers graze past his lover's arm, but then he stopped because he was scared it would wake him up. 

Even without being tangled up together, which was usually the cause of it, Baekhyun noticed soon enough how he was sporting a boner, and he chuckled at himself. He had gotten plenty of satisfaction the night before, yet his body had betrayed him in his sleep.

However, with there not having been any rubbing off action to cause his morning wood, he kind of felt like it was just there rather than asking him to do something about it, and so Baekhyun didn’t do much more than find a way to lie a little more comfortably.

Looking back at Chanyeol, he considered the options he had right now. Baekhyun thought about how he could get up and prepare some breakfast, but as the idea popped into his head he simultaneously remembered how that was how he had ended up cutting himself last time. He also very vividly remembered everything what had come after, and that made him realise that he would much rather make breakfast together with Chanyeol this time, if only to replace the old memory with a new one. 

With no other options left but to wait, Baekhyun lay back and sighed, letting more time pass by. It was rather boring, spending that much time alone when the one person he desperately wanted with him was asleep right next to him. Still, for minutes on end he lay there, feeling as if he was waiting an eternity for something to happen, but no matter how much he tried, he couldn't keep himself away from his boyfriend for too long. 

He figured that if Chanyeol could sneak into bed with him late at night to wake him up with kisses, Baekhyun was allowed to do the same to him. Especially now that they were actually together, in the same bed as that night. He had just as much of a right to make the first move as Chanyeol did, and Baekhyun was kind of tired of waiting.

Convinced by his own arguments, Baekhyun pushed the covers down his body and carefully rolled himself over in the space on his side of the bed. He sat next to Chanyeol's body, resting on hands and knees, and waited while holding his breath to see if the other had stirred in his sleep whatsoever. 

When things appeared to be fine, with Chanyeol’s hand still unmoving on his stomach, Baekhyun released the breath he had been holding and allowed himself to smile a little more. After all, the view he had was adorable.

He chuckled at the stupid face Chanyeol was pulling in his sleep, with no control over the muscles in his face, and then, when he settled again, Baekhyun saw his chance and took it. He swung one leg over Chanyeol's body, making it so his knees were resting on either side of his boyfriend's hips, and by moving his arms along he made sure he wasn't yet touching him.

Baekhyun only lingered, hanging over him, and let his eyes roam across Chanyeol's face once more. That face though, the curve of his jaw and the shape of his ears, the colour of his eyelashes, Baekhyun had already memorised all of that. What was new to him was everything else.

Like the mole right underneath Chanyeol’s left collar bone, the way his belly button seemed almost perfectly round, and how veiny his arms were. Chanyeol was truly a masterpiece, because despite his lanky figure he looked effortlessly stunning with a body that Baekhyun knew he had worked hard to achieve. 

The effort sure paid off though, because it meant that Baekhyun got to admire the work of art in front of him. He got to trace his fingers down Chanyeol's happy trail, got to kiss the dip above his collarbone and nuzzle at his ear. He got to appreciate every fleck of colour gracing Chanyeol's skin, got to feel the movement of the muscles of Chanyeol's thighs underneath his touch, and if that wasn't enough, he'd get to receive the same affection in return by those big, rough-looking hands.

Baekhyun was having a harder time keeping away the longer he let his eyes roam, and eventually he made the mistake of kissing Chanyeol's collar bone again. Having moved his lips a little too high, his hair had tickled his boyfriend's chin and nose, and Baekhyun felt the way the taller's body jolted in surprise when he woke up. 

Their heads knocked together when Chanyeol tried to sit up as he was startled awake, and Baekhyun groaned as he sat back on his boyfriend's thighs so he could use his hand to rub at the place of collision. It didn’t hurt that much, but still enough to make Baekhyun reach for it without a thought.

"God damn, Baekhyun, you scared me," Chanyeol gasped, sounding a little out of breath as a hand came up to clutch at his chest, as if that would help bring down the way his heart had jumped at the shock of finding someone on top of him.

"Sorry," Baekhyun apologised immediately while he kept rubbing his head, hissing a little at the stinging, "I know, I shouldn't have jumped you like that.” He groaned and couldn’t help but laugh dryly, wrinking his forehead as the annoying throbbing in his head slowly subsided, “I have to admit, you were much better at it." 

That made Chanyeol chuckle, finally, and he smiled as he pulled his boyfriend's hand away from his face so he could take a look at him. Smiling softly, they stared at each other for a while, almost a little daringly. It was as if Chanyeol was trying to question him with his eyes and Baekhyun did everything he could not to answer. He even looked away, pretending to really be in pain, but none of that helped.  

"What were you trying to achieve?" The taller finally asked, using words because of the way his boyfriend was avoiding his eyes, and Baekhyun shrugged in reply before he tried to climb off Chanyeol’s thighs. Tried, because he wasn’t going anywhere.

A hand grabbed his wrist and stopped him from moving, and Baekhyun easily complied. It was Chanyeol's way of telling him to stop apologising and thinking he had done something wrong by climging on top of him. Baekhyun knew that, knew Chanyeol wasn’t mad at him, but he felt immensely shy nevertheless.  

To be caught in an act like that, to have Chanyeol only slightly making fun of him, it made him feel a little embarrassed. As if it had been wrong of him to crawl on top to admire the beauty that was, in truth, his to admire. However, if there was one thing Chanyeol was good at, it was changing the mood in nothing but a second. 

He went from being smiley and playful about catching Baekhyun in the act, to something a little darker and sexier. Taking Baekhyun's hand, he guided it down to his stomach, down the planes of skin the fallen one had already admired, and after letting Baekhyun's fingers graze for a moment, Chayeol changed his grip on the hand in his and turned it so that Baekhyun's hand was pressed to his crotch. 

"I thought I'd finally get to see a glimpse of that demon side I know you have," Chanyeol sounded so playful with that cheeky grin on his face, and it was entirely too much combined with the way he carelessly kept rubbing himself through his own underwear with Baekhyun's hand. He sounded like he had full control over this, like he knew he was sexy, and that flipped a switch in Baekhyun's brain. 

The hand Chanyeol was holding by the wrist had been limp up to this point. Baekhyun hadn't known how to react, had just let it happen, but now that his boyfriend's words had hit him, he felt his body respond on its own. His hand tugged free, a move Chanyeol hadn't seen coming, and Baekhyun was swift and experienced enough to not make any mistakes in where he was guiding it. 

He moved his hand down further until he could cup Chanyeol's balls through his underwear, but unlike what he really wanted, it wasn't a sweet caress at all. It was exactly what Chanyeol had asked for, and Baekhyun briefly remembered how his boyfriend had said how hot it was that he had dared to grab Nam-gi by the balls. Well, Baekhyun hoped he still thought the same now that it was him. "One wrong move and this will hurt," he warned.

 It was visible, the way Chanyeol swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he did, and he looked down his body to where Baekhyun was seated now. He had pressed 'start' without knowing it, or maybe he had done it on purpose, and boy did Baekhyun hope he knew what he was in for, because Baekhyun had lost all of the remaining heat of embarrassment that had been previously in his cheeks, the second Chanyeol had dared him.

"You wouldn't. It would mean you won't be getting any sex anytime soon," Chanyeol replied, sounding a little smug but also a little scared that Baekhyun really wasn't fucking around, which was actually hilarious and gave Baekhyun the desire to continue with this. 

"Do you really want to test me? Cause I would,” Baekhyun replied with a sweet smile, leaving no space for second-guessing his words, “I've been living on my own for almost a year, I can deal with just my hand." He tipped his head to the side and blew his boyfriend a kiss while adding more pressure on his hand.

Chanyeol squirmed underneath his touch, and it was right where Baekhyun wanted him to be. "See, the only reason I was on top of you was to watch," Baekhyun explained, using the same playful tone Chanyeol had used on him, "’cause it isn't fair, you know? How you know my body so well, but I don't know yours at all. I don't know what you like, what makes you go crazy or what I really shouldn't do when I have you underneath me like I do now." 

Chanyeol was watching him, clearly keeping quiet out of fear that whatever he would say could cost him. He only blinked up at Baekhyun, let his lips part so he could breathe a little easier, and Baekhyun took that as a sign that it was okay to continue. 

"Like, I know I go crazy when someone lightly touches my sides," he said while he let the fingers of his free hand do what he was talking about. He let them slide across the patch of Chanyeol's skin that was uncovered, very slowly and with the pads of his fingertips barely touching him. However, even though he could see the muscles in his boyfriend's abdomen tense at the touch, he didn't get the reaction he had hoped for. 

"So that's a no, then," he sat back and looked down at Chanyeol, trying to find new things to tease him with. His boyfriend stayed very patient, lying still with his eyes on Baekhyun's face, and he made no suggestions either. It was as if he was actually interested in seeing what Baekhyun would try. It was either that, or he truly feared getting hurt. 

Rather than keeping his hand floating in the air after the lingering touch, Baekhyun dropped it to the inside of Chanyeol's thigh, right about where he was seated, and he squeezed the muscle there. It caused for Chanyeol’s whole body to spasm, his leg pulling in reply to the touch. And so Baekhyun did it again, massaging very slowly and changing the tightness of his grip every other second. 

He watched the way it made Chanyeol's eyes drop shut, how he was straining not to move, and when Baekhyun let go of his thigh to tap it lightly with his fingers, he caught the sharp breath Chanyeol inhaled through his teeth. 

"So you are a thigh kind of guy, sweet, I like kissing and biting those" Baekhyun laughed as he gave the other thigh some attention as well, noticing how the muscles quivered slightly under his touch. He smiled then and retreated his hand, moving up Chanyeol's body instead. 

Seeing how his boyfriend was still watching him rather than fighting him, Baekhyun thought it was safe to assume he wouldn't be stopped even if he let go of the hold he had on him, which was why Baekhyun dared to let his fingers slide up from Chanyeol's balls up to his cloth-covered cock.

He could tell his lover was already half-hard from the simple touches alone, and Baekhyun sure had the intention of making it much worse before he'd do anything about the desire that had surely started to pool in his lover’s gut. 

He scooted up, his crotch aligning better with Chanyeol's, but unlike his boyfriend, Baekhyun was actually wearing his pyjama pants. The ones his boyfriend had unpacked the evening before. The lack of skin-to-skin contact was obviously frustrating the taller, who was already dying to get more, but he had asked for Baekhyun's darker side so that was what he would get. 

With a few rough tugs, Baekhyun got Chanyeol’s shirt up far enough to reveal most of his chest, and his boyfriend made the move himself to bring his arms up, ready for Baekhyun to take it off completely, which was exactly why Baekhyun left it there. The fabric pressed up underneath Chanyeol’s armpits looked quite ridiculous, with half of Iron Man’s face still visible, but his boyfriend would just have to deal with it.

"I have to say, most guys really are the same,” Baekhyun went on, as if nothing had happened, and Chanyeol dropped his arms finally,”there's the obvious parts where we like to be touched, but there's other things that differ for everyone," Baekhyun explained as he fell over on his hands, placed either side of Chanyeol's body, and he dipped down further to press a kiss to the middle of his chest, right next to his heart.

Without saying anything more he started kissing his way to the left, where he reached Chanyeol's right nipple. This was to be a sure-fire success, because Baekhyun had never before met a guy who didn’t like this. At the same time it was exciting, though, because Baekhyun still got to figure out whether Chanyeol liked sucking, kissing or biting. Or if maybe he liked all of it.

As he took a moment to take a breath, he felt one of Chanyeol’s hands at the back of his head. His fingers woven through his hair, holding on to it, and Baekhyun realised a beat later that it was to guide him, to help Baekhyun figure out what to do. His boyfriend was actually helping him, and Baekhyun wasn’t sure whether he should smile or be pissed off at it.

To do a bit of both he decided not to argue, but he also made the decision to try biting first. He really wanted to play his role, to bring out the dark side of himself, and although he was dying to bite down hard and see if Chanyeol would respond anything like the touch-starved demons he used to be with, he couldn’t do that to his boyfriend.

Baekhyun was already too soft for his boyfriend, wanting to refrain from actually hurting him, and he cursed himself a little for being so weak before he tried to let it go again. Instead of actually biting, he ended up lightly scraping his teeth across the sensitive skin while he exhaled loudly, slightly frustrated with himself. It earned him a gasp from his boyfriend though, and the fingers in his hair tightened their hold.

Feeling bold, encouraged by the positive response he had received, Baekhyun applied every trick he knew, from very slowly using his tongue in an open-mouthed kiss to actually tugging with his teeth. He knew a lot of tricks, way too many for his taste, but right now they came in handy. Baekhyun got to close his eyes and completely focus on Chanyeol’s pleasure, not thinking about anything other than the way his boyfriend was responding to his touches.

And so whenever he felt a pull on his hair, signalling Chanyeol trying to get him to move away from him, he’d cross something off his list, as if burning it from his brain. Whenever he felt nothing at all, he marked them as ‘alright’, keeping it in mind as an easy option to tease with, while some other things he circled once or twice, depending on just how much Chanyeol liked it. Those were the things he needed to know.

In all honesty, Baekhyun wasn’t at all thinking about himself. When he moved against Chanyeol’s leg when he pulled back, he could feel that he was still hard, like he had been when he woke up, but he had kind of stopped paying attention to it after that. The sounds his boyfriend had made had apparently registered somewhere in his brain, though, and whereas before he hadn’t felt the desire pool in his stomach, now he did.

But even now that he was aware of his own yearning, he wasn’t going to make this about him either, because he had only discovered such a small proportion of Chanyeol’s body. He hadn’t yet made his way down, hadn’t created this map in his head yet of what Chanyeol’s body was like, and he wouldn’t stop until he had at least parts of his boyfriend’s body figured out.

The chest was one thing he could cross of that list, though, that he could colour in on the map, and as he closed his eyes and let those discoveries be branded into his mind, he moved his lips down further, ready for more. It was addictive in a way, finding out what drove someone else utterly crazy.

He kissed the smooth planes of Chanyeol’s body, let his fingers trail down the taller’s happy trail and nuzzled at the lightly defined outline of his abs. Receiving an approving hum, Baekhyun moved both hands to take a hold of Chanyeol’s hips, holding him in place as he kissed his way down south until he reached the waistband of his boyfriend’s underwear.

Hooking his fingers into it would have been an easy move to get Chanyeol naked quickly, but as Baekhyun had established before, he was going to make this as torturous as possible for as long as he could. So instead of giving in to what Chanyeol probably wanted most, Baekhyun didn’t stop his mouth from moving in order to give his hands the space to roam.

His lips trailed further south, teeth tugging at the waistband of his boyfriend’s underwear for a second before he let it snap back against Chanyeol’s skin lightly. Baekhyun felt it the way the muscles underneath his hands clenched together in surprise, and they didn’t really have a moment to recover either before the fallen one had his mouth covering his boyfriend’s erection through the thin layer of fabric.

With his lips parted he breathed out hot air through the cotton of the underwear and then, unsatisfied with the response he was getting, he let his lips slide more. Mixed with the feeling of his teeth it was just enough stimulation, the fabric still between Baekhyun’s teeth and the sensitive skin of Chanyeol’s cock.

The hold Chanyeol had on his boyfriend’s hair was even tighter than before, and Baekhyun actually worried that once he actually went down on him, Chanyeol would be ripping his hair out. Still, in a way it was funny, to feel just how frustrated Baekhyun was making him. It satisfied him to know he still had it, that seductiveness that he needed to please a partner.

It excited him as well, knowing that the reason Chanyeol was whining from deep down his chest was because Baekhyun was teasing him, and because he wanted more from Baekhyun than this. To feel wanted by someone you have feelings for is so much better than feeling wanted by a random one-night stand. The pride of being able to spark such intense reactions, it made Baekhyun act even bolder.

As his mouth covered the head of Chanyeol’s cock through the cotton, Baekhyun could feel the dampness of it against his lower lip, telling him how his boyfriend was already leaking. It turned him on even more, bolts of electricity shooting down to his groin, and without thinking twice about it he pulled on Chanyeol’s briefs enough to uncover the spot he had just been mouthing at.

Feeling the warmth of Chanyeol’s skin against his lips was different, and once Baekhyun had licked his lips and wrapped them around the crown of his lover’s cock, he heard a mewling sound that told the fallen one his boyfriend shared that thought.

Baekhyun was glad he still had his hands placed on his boyfriend’s hips, because it became clear soon enough that no matter how controlled Chanyeol had appeared before, he kinds of lost that once his dick was getting this much attention.

His hips were continuously trying to move, bucking up into Baekhyun’s hold, and every time he did, the mouth that covered him would disappear for a few seconds. It was stupid, but Baekhyun was already addicted to the moans that Chanyeol let slip every time he retreated, and so he kept it going until his boyfriend was actually whining.

Then, to make him lose it a little more, Baekhyun swallowed down more of him, as much as he could with the underwear still in the way. He wasn’t going to let go of Chanyeol’s hips to get rid of them though, so it would just have to do.

Nudging Chanyeol’s legs further apart with his elbows, Baekhyun lowered himself down on the bed, finding a better position to get into while he gave his boyfriend head, slow and determined. He knew which tricks he could apply to get Chanyeol coming, or so he assumed he knew, from earlier experiences with guys, but he didn’t want that. There was no need to rush.

He wanted to get used to the feeling of his lips stretched around Chanyeol’s cock, wanted to get familiar with the taste of him on his tongue. He hadn’t had the chance to take in these things last time, when Chanyeol came over and fucked him, but he did now. Now he had all the time in the world to let his tongue play, to let his mouth get sore and tired, and his own cock twitched in his pyjama pants in response to it.

Sitting back for barely a second, Baekhyun let go of Chanyeol’s hips as he took his mouth off him too, ready to get the taller’s briefs to at least mid-thigh, and preferably out of the way altogether. Chanyeol allowed him to get some space between them, which was why Baekhyun had enough patience to help his boyfriend get rid of his underwear completely.

Chanyeol dropped his legs on the bed again once it was done, spread wide enough for Baekhyun to sit in between, and the fallen one looked down at the body on display for him. It was still a little ridiculous, with the way Chanyeol’s Iron Man shirt had moved down to reveal some more of the mask, and it made Baekhyun snort briefly before he smiled and pushed himself up more so he could change his position.

He could already tell Chanyeol was a bucker, someone who couldn’t keep his hips still no matter how he tried, and Baekhyun wanted to prevent that at all costs which was why he climbed up his boyfriend’s body until his knees were on either side of his waist.

Confusion cleared the wanton haze that had been covering Chanyeol’s eyes, and he seemed to wake up from his daze a little. His eyes flitted back and forth, unsure as he tried to figure out Baekhyun’s next move, which was him wriggling his legs in such a way that he could let himself fall back between Chanyeol’s legs, but have his legs straddling his boyfriend’s thighs.

He’d have to bend his body over to be able to get his mouth on him again, but the weight of his own thighs and lower legs would anchor Chanyeol down more than any weak lower arm or hands would, and that would make it easier for Baekhyun to last that much longer with his teasing too.

Once his boyfriend understood what Baekhyun was doing, he held one of his lover’s hands to support him as he sat back. The other found Baekhyun’s ankle, where he held on until his boyfriend was seated, when he trailed it up higher to hold on to something a little thicker.

Being folded like this somehow made Baekhyun feel much closer to Chanyeol than he had been before, on his knees between his legs, and as he nuzzled a hipbone his nose easily reached, he let himself appreciate his lover’s body once more.

Chanyeol was clearly a hygienic person, for he was cleanly cut, making it much more enjoyable for Baekhyun as he took him in as far as possible. His nose touched the soft curls of his pubic hair, which tickled slightly, but it only made Baekhyun smile, albeit a little awkwardly.

As he hollowed his cheeks, Baekhyun breathed in through his nose, inhaling the heavy scent of Chanyeol that made something twist deep in his gut. The desire to rub himself through his pants while he gave head was strong, but he didn’t want to be over way too soon for neither of them, and so he had to test his own patience as well as Chanyeol’s.

Having gone quite slow so far, Baekhyun cast his eyes up while focusing on nothing but the head of Chanyeol’s cock again. The loss of warmth made his boyfriend tilt his head, from being thrown back and having his neck on display, to meeting Baekhyun’s eyes down his body.

The look they shared was rather intense, making Baekhyun kind of want to give up on the slow burn and give it his all instead. However, the deliriousness he saw on display on Chanyeol’s face, as well as the way his boyfriend sucked his lower lip between his teeth so teasingly, they were enough to make Baekhyun want to continue the way he was right now, if only to see how far he could take him.

Pulling his mouth off completely, Baekhyun changed his position some more. He braced Chanyeol’s hips with one arm, an extra messure in case his thighs weren’t heavy enough to strain against his boyfriend’s toned muscles.

He put pressure on his arm to tell his boyfriend that he wanted him not to move them whatsoever, and he smiled up at Chanyeol once before he swallowed him down again while at the same time his free hand moved between the bed and his chest, using up the last space he had to cup his boyfriend’s balls.

This time the hold was delicate, not like the tight grip he had used before this had lead anywhere, and he slowly moved his fingers to massage them along to the rhythm of his swirling tongue. It was enough to elicit a moan from the man underneath him, and hands once again found Baekhyun’s hair to hold on to.

Chanyeol tried to push him down some, to have Baekhyun take in more of him, and probably unlike what his boyfriend had expected, Baekhyun obeyed. He sped up as well, alternating between sucking and licking, bobbing his head in a continuously increasing speed. Until he stopped it altogether, backing away completely like he hadn’t been touching at all, and this time Chanyeol bucked his hips up almost violently. Baekhyun had been right: his own thighs were nothing compared to the strength of Chanyeol’s.

Although he bucked, Baekhyun didn’t mind it for he was sitting back anyway, giving his stomach a break. Chanyeol in turn whined loudly, the sound delicious to Baekhyun’s ears, and the fallen one was so tempted to say that he had been the one to ask for this in the first place, for this side of Baekhyun to come out, but he was too out of it himself to make jokes. Really, he wanted to tease Chanyeol so much more, wanted to make him regret ever testing the fallen one in the first place.

Leaning back on one hand, settled between Chanyeol’s spread legs, Baekhyun put himself on display instead. He knew he was fully dressed, knew it wasn’t much of a show, but he also realised that facial expressions could drive you even more crazy than a piece of nakes skin could, which was exactly why he was planning on overdoing this.

Baekhyun’s other hand, the one he wasn’t resting on, shifted to his own body, trailing down his chest in a teasing manner first, until he roughly shoved it in his pyjama pants. By now he was eager to finally give some attention to his own cock, which had desperately wanted to be touched ever since he first got a taste of Chanyeol.

Moaning way louder than was necessary, Baekhyun bucked up his own hips so that Chanyeol could see what he was doing, and the soft, “fuck,” that left his boyfriend’s lips was simply too priceless. Hands reached out for him, landing on his upper legs, unable to reach higher, and it was so hot the way Chanyeol whined because of it.

Being this turned on by the lingering taste of his boyfriend, Baekhyun knew it wouldn’t actually take too long for him to come, but that wasn’t what he wanted to achieve right now. Not yet, at least, because earlier he had learned that Chanyeol was a thigh guy, which was an area of his body that Baekhyun had yet to explore. Forgotten in favour of hearing his boyfriend moan while getting sucked off, he had completely missed out on giving any attention to the soft skin that had made Chanyeol squirm before.

Realising that Baekhyun wasn’t done with him, Chanyeol stopped fighting and he lay back again, taking deep breaths to calm himself down some as he waited. The fallen one took in the way his chest rose and fell time and time again, and he kept stroking himself while he pushed himself backwards, finding his way back to sitting between his boyfriend’s legs.He was sure it wasn’t that graceful, but he didn’t care because Chanyeol didn’t seem to either.

Getting back on his knees, Baekhyun stopped touching himself in order to find a good grip on Chanyeol’s hips again as well as find a comfortable position to kneel in. His knees were already a bit sore from all the pressure he put on it before, but Baekhyun was refusing to give up. The fun was only about to really start.

Deciding to just surprise Chanyeol instead of letting him know, he pressed his nose to the inside of his boyfriend’s left thigh, the touch informing him of what Baekhyun was planning on doing. Not that he truly wanted the permission, but it was still nice that Chanyeol gave him an ‘okay’ by humming an agreeing noise.

Baekhyun’s movements were less hurried with his focus back on the hold he had on his boyfriend, knowing that the more he touched, the more wound up Chanyeol would become and the more he’d buck. The taller may not be fighting it right now, but he could very well try again once Baekhyun used his teeth on him, and he wouldn’t be taking any funny business then.

Drawing a line upwards with his nose, Baekhyun could feel how Chanyeol’s other leg moved, his heel slamming into the mattress while he held back a whine. He knew that this felt good for him, because every time he nuzzled his way up, blood would flow up to where Chanyeol was already hard and leaking, and it was only making it that much more painful not being touched.

Eventually Baekhyun stopped moving and pressed his mouth to the skin of Chanyeol’s thigh, his tongue flicking out to taste, to tickle and drive his boyfriend up the wall. It wasn’t until he bit down softly though, that Chanyeol really responded. He hissed, sucking air through his teeth, and warningly breathed out a weak sounding, “Baekhyun.”

Getting his hand out of his pyajama pants, Baekhyun stopped, gazing up sweetly with an innocent smile, and asked, “what? Do you want me to stop?” he didn’t sit back, kept his lips close to Chanyeol’s skin as he breathed against it, and that was just as torturous. Baekhyun could see how conflicted his boyfriend looked, how he desperately wanted to get off, but at the same time he was enjoying this just as much as Baekhyun was.

“I-“ Chanyeol brought out before he paused, lips still parted, as Baekhyun brought down his fingers to trail a path downward. Then he curled them around the taller’s leg, massaging the back of his knee, and that seemed to be another weak spot. “No,” his lover finally answered before he threw his head back again, obviously frustrated with how much he was being stimulated without actually being brought anywhere close to orgasm.

“Soon,” Baekhyun promised as he smiled into Chanyeol’s thigh, fingers pressing deeper into the back of Chanyeol’s left knee. Then he used his hold on that knee to press his boyfriend’s leg up further, spreading it open wider so Baekhyun had more skin to kiss.

Scraping his teeth against Chanyeol’s inner thigh once more, he decided he had done enough teasing for now. He could always come back and explore some more another time. So he kissed his way up slowly, creeping higher up on the inside of Chanyeol’s thigh, until he was right back where his boyfriend wanted him.

As Baekhyun looked up he saw how Chanyeol was holding his breath, once again looking down his body to where his lover was seated. Baekhyun chuckled at that and he sat back, up on his heels this time, which caused Chanyeol to loudly release the breath he had been holding in anticipation. It wasn’t difficult to spot the disappointment and frustration in his boyfriend’s eyes, but Baekhyun had his reasons.

He moved up Chanyeol’s body, leaning on his hands which he placed next to his boyfriend’s waist as he let go of everything else. He wasted no time before dipping down and kissing him, their lips crushing together hard, and Baekhyun allowed his lover to lick into his mouth, letting him taste himself on Baekhyun’s tongue.

Chanyeol made a sound into their kiss, his hands finding Baekhyun’s waist by which he tried to pull the older one down against him, something Baekhyun fought against. He broke the kiss, slapped Chanyeol’s right hand away and then reached for it. He grabbed it before it could retreat from touching him, and he brought it up to his head.

Helping Chanyeol curl his fingers into his hair, he looked down at him, “here.” When it stayed there, Baekhyun moved his weight on his other hand so he could reach for Chanyeol’s left hand as well and, realising what his boyfriend was doing, Chanyeol easily brought it up to Baekhyun’s head himself.

His eyes were questioning as they stared up into Baekhyun’s, like he didn’t quite understand or wasn’t quite sure whether he had understood correctly. And so Baekhyun smiled at him and clicked his tongue, “what? Don’t want the control?” he asked.

Instead of waiting for an answer though, assuming he knew it already anyway, Baekhyun dropped his head to kiss Chanyeol’s chest and then a track leading down. After spending some time on those beautiful hipbones, giving Chanyeol a moment to compose himself and straighten his thoughts, he continued his trail down south.

He lingered above his boyfriend’s erection, waiting patiently for Chanyeol to get himself together and make a move. It took a few seconds, but then he seemed to be picking up, for the hands that had still been in Baekhyun’s hair pressed against his head slightly. Baekhyun complied, allowing himself to move along with the pressure, and so he took him in his mouth again.

Chanyeol sighed, had him stay like that for a moment as he mumbled another curse, and Baekhyun would have laughed if he hadn’t had his mouth full of cock. Instead, as he waited for more, he decided to be a bit more of a tease by sucking softly, just enough to pull Chanyeol out of whatever thoughts he was lost in.

It caused for Chanyeol to move, his hips coming up which resulted in him pushing himself deeper into Baekhyun’s mouth. He was composed enough to bring his ass back down again though, and instead of using his hips to get Baekhyun to take in more, he focused on the hold he had on his boyfriend’s hair.

Baekhyun let him push and pull, setting the pace of it, and all he did was focus on the movements his tongue made, on the occasional hollowing of his cheeks. However, he knew that Chanyeol could only stay this controlled for so long, that he could only be this patient until his desire to reach his orgasm would take over, and he was waiting for that moment. He was waiting for the moment Chanyeol would really let go.

When he felt those hips move again, Chanyeol bucking slightly from time to time, he knew that moment was coming closer. He could feel it from how tight the hold on his hair was too, and he moaned around his lover to speed it up.

“Baek, you fucking- don’t,” Chanyeol groaned, hips stuttering even more, and Baekhyun could tell that he really didn’t want to be rough with him, that his boyfriend didn’t want to abuse his power over him right now, when that was exactly what Baekhyun wanted of him. And so he did it again, he made another sound before sucking, and that was what made Chanyeol snap.

This time, when he thrust up, he hit the back of Baekhyun’s throat, and Baekhyun tried not to choke. He realised that it had been a while since he had last done this, and he seemed to have lost it a little so he tried to relax his throat and focus on breathing as Chanyeol did it again. He shifted his hips at a slow speed even now he allowed himself to move, but he let them push up rather than stay still, and Baekhyun closed his eyes and let him. He didn’t have to do much else, couldn’t actually do much else either except for let Chanyeol set the pace for a bit as he worked himself to his climax.

With his eyes shut, Baekhyun got to listen to the way his boyfriend was panting, got to focus on the way he felt and the way he tasted, and it was better that way. And although Chanyeol could do whatever he wanted to Baekhyun now that the fallen one had given up whatever control he had had, he was still soft with him, much softer than any demon Baekhyun had ever slept with. How that was possible at all was beyond him, but Baekhyun was kind of thankful regardless.

When he could tell that Chanyeol was getting close to reaching his climax, he moved to get one lower arm on his boyfriend’s hips again, reclaiming his control. It took a few seconds for his lover to snap out of it, but then he did and his hips all but stilled under Baekhyun’s weight. As a consequence, the hands in his hair lost their tight grip as well, but they kept pushing at Baekhyun’s head as Chanyeol was clearly desperately to come.

It felt as if his boyfriend was actually worried that Baekhyun would stop now, that he’d leave him hanging once again, but that wasn’t why Baekhyun took back control. He didn’t want to take it all back either, but he needed just enough control to ensure he got to move along with his boyfriend. That way he got to press his tongue to the ridge of the head of his lover’s cock, got to softly hollow his cheeks some more, and soon enough Chanyeol was moaning his name again.

His hips were straining against Baekhyun’s hold, and so the fallen one swirled his tongue again and again, did all he could to get his boyfriend there without making the pleasure too intense. He was so caught up in it as well that he barely felt how one hand let go of his hair in favour of holding onto the pillow underneath Chanyeol’s head, becase he was too lost in the sounds dripping from his lover’s lips to notice.

After Baekhyun tongued at the slit once more and sucked him in on his way back down, Chanyeol lost it completely. He came, spilling down Baekhyun’s throat, which made his boyfriend’s moves turn a lot softer.

He kept his moves small, not wanting to overstimulate too much, and as he pulled back enough to swallow he let his free hand cover what his mouth no longer reached. He waited for the hand in his hair to lose its tight grip, and once it did he let his tired mouth open, Chanyeol’s softening cock falling from his lips.

Then, before he dared look up at his boyfriend, he placed a handful of tiny soft kisses to Chanyeol’s stomach. He did this until he felt a finger underneath his chin, forcing him to look up to where his boyfriend was watching him still, the look of frustration now replaced by a warmer emotion. He smiled, beckoning Baekhyun up with a single nod of his chin, and of course Baekhyun obeyed.

He had barely gotten eye level with Chanyeol before he was being tugged down into what he could only describe as one of the most breath-taking kisses he had ever received. It made his heart jump, warmth spreading through his body like a tidal wave, and he simply closed his eyes and allowed himself to get lost in it.

Chanyeol kissed him so sweetly, a hand coming up to brush some of his hair out of his face, and it was soft and loving and everything else that was exactly the opposite of what they had just done.

 His neglected hard on was poking Chanyeol’s stomach, but Baekhyun didn’t realise it until he felt the way his boyfriend awkwardly got a hand into his pyjama pants and curled his fingers around Baekhyun’s aching erection.

Chanyeol moved their bodies slightly, allowing Baekhyun to roll sideways somewhat, that way making it easier for him to move his hand. The lips against his never left, they kept pressing love into Baekhyun’s, intensifying it as he demanded for the shorter to open up for him, and the feeling of Chanyeol’s tongue sliding against his was enough for his wound up body to reach the point of no return.

As he whined low in his throat, making their lips part a little, Baekhyun came in his boyfriend’s hand. His orgasm was almost painful from the way it had been building up for so long, and Baekhyun closed his eyes against the dizzying feeling it left him with as Chanyeol touched him until he had finally stopped coming.

Even then, with both of them spent and boneless, Chanyeol didn’t stop kissing him. He kept their mouths pressed together, the kisses now slow and languid, but they made Baekhyun completely melt in his boyfriend’s arms. Either the year of no sex he had gone through made it that every sexual thing he did now was that much more intense, or sex with Chanyeol was just very good. Or maybe it was both.

He chuckled when he finally opened his eyes again, when the lips against his had stopped moving altogether and had only rested there. He didn’t move away, carefully spoke the words against Chanyeol’s mouth, and he felt the laughter he received in return all the way in his bones, “I can’t believe I already have to wash these pyjama pants.”

It was like the sun was shining inside their bedroom, warming them both with its rays and filling Baekhyun with this extreme happiness that he had longed for for so long that now he had it he felt like he could cry over it. There was a hand tickling his lower back, lips pressed to his cheekbone now, and a leg between his and they were claiming Baekhyun’s heart as if it wasn’t his.

And Baekhyun let it happen. He let himself fall, at rocket speed and without any fear whatsoever of not being caught once he’d reach the end of his fall. It was the exact opposite of his fall out of heaven. Instead, this was what falling what supposed to feel like: like falling _into_ heaven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the last of that Christmas loving, cause from here it's gonna be a lot of down and up and down and... down? Or up? ^^   
> Time for some freakin truth!!! 


	23. Complications

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Baekhyun! About time," The silence had been so deafening that the words uttered by the man in front of him hurt Baekhyun's ears. He stood in the doorway, frozen in shock as he took in his apartment, which he realised now looked exactly the same except for the fact that there was someone sitting on his couch, turned around so he could face him now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, as promised. After smut comes... complications. It's a ride this one, I'm aware.

~

 

Toben was beyond excited to be outside. The tiny ball of black ran around barking at everything as his fur slowly got coated in the fresh layer of snow that the streets were covered in as well.  

It was cold outside, but not worse than the past weeks had been, and wearing a scarf and hat were sufficient enough to protect himself from the harsh wind. Baekhyun would have worn his mittens as well, had it not been for that Chanyeol was holding onto his hand, their fingers entwined and really, he didn't mind how cold his other hand was if he got to enjoy this.

Their steps matched, hands softly swinging between their bodies, and both of them felt content walking together for a while without talking about anything particularly interesting. Toben stayed near them at all times, rolling around in snow for a bit before he'd run after them again. It was the perfect image, the fairytale Baekhyun had dreamed of since before he actually fell from heaven, and now he got to experience it all. 

Why angels and demons feared becoming mortal so much was truly a mystery to him. To Baekhyun it was the best thing that could have happened to him, because even before Chanyeol came into his life, things had been much more interesting than they had ever been to him back in heaven and hell combined together. And now that he had someone to call his, someone he got to kiss and to love, it was even more perfect. 

Baekhyun leaned into his boyfriend's side with a happy smile on his face, feeling warm inside underneath all the layers of clothes he was wearing. He briefly thought back to that morning, where Chanyeol had handed him one of his sweaters when Baekhyun had come out of the shower, telling him that it was too cold outside for Baekhyun’s old clothes. Unlike last time, when Baekhyun had refused to accept such a thing when they weren’t even together, this time he had taken it without hesitation. 

The easy mood hadn't been entirely unexpected, though. Baekhyun felt like the Christmas spirit had helped them a lot to get closer, like it had offered a hand to make them open up to each other more. Since the incident with the choker had forced Baekhyun to share, it had been one flow of pointless secrets, which were just as important. They had talked, had laughed and they had loved. That smile Baekhyun was sporting was bound to stay on his face the rest of the day, for sure. 

"Baekhyun?" Chanyeol asked, pulling the fallen one back out of his daydreams and back to the real world, which honestly was just as good. The taller one had his eyes on him, expression soft and curious, and Baekhyun smiled as he made an approving sound, urging Chanyeol to go on.

"I was wondering if maybe you'd like to come over to my school? after the Christmas holiday?" He voiced next, looking a little unsure of himself, an then he just started rambling, "I thought because you usually have the mornings off... I would love it if you could come over to help me with a project I'm working on? I'm writing a song for it, and well, your voice is so stunning that I can’t imagine anyone else singing it. I mean, I know it’s a lot to ask, but would you at least consider it?" 

Baekhyun raised his eyebrows at the flood of words washing over him, not having seen any of it coming, but he felt a smile creep up on his face nonetheless. It was cute, the fact that Chanyeol was asking him something like that, and he must truly believe in Baekhyun's singing abilities if he would ask him over to his actual job. 

"Yeah, of course, Yeol," Baekhyun said fondly, smiling at the way the corners of Chanyeol's mouth quirked up as he used the nickname, "I'll come over. If you think they won't make fun of me and everything. I’ll read them the book I gave you for Christmas." 

The taller fervently shook his head at that while he softly squeezed Baekhyun's hand in his, "no, they won't make fun of you at all. In fact, I know they'll adore you. I swear, I'm certain that once they've seen you they won't want you to leave.” Chanyeol smiled then, nudging Baekhyun’s shoulder with his own, “see, I've told them I met an angel, and they've been asking me about the angel's life ever since." 

"Really now?" Baekhyun was only slightly surprised that Chanyeol had shared such a thing with his kids, but then again they were young and probably did not feel like Chanyeol was telling the truth at all. Even if they did, they were still kids. Knowing kids, they would probably believe Chanyeol now, but would grow up to think there was no such thing anyway, and Baekhyun decided then that he could simply play along with Chanyeol’s story without actually confirming the truth.

"How careless of you though, sharing that information. Share that with the wrong people and they might just steal me away from you," Baekhyun joked warningly, cocking an eyebrow as he sent the taller a smile, showing him that he was feeling perfectly at ease.  

~

Baekhyun had walked home with a skip in his step, feeling beyond happy with everything he currently had in his life. It was honestly a little too good to be true for someone like him, someone with the worst luck in the world, and part of him felt like that meant that something bad just had to happen soon. It couldn't not, because Baekhyun had never been that lucky.

If there was one thing Baekhyun knew, it was that happiness didn't last forever. He had learnt that very early on, because no matter whether angels would fail in holding a relationship together or if it was as simple as their time of protecting someone coming to an end, one thing was clear: everything would come to an end.

Baekhyun didn’t know better than to expect the inevitable, and so he knew to expect some sort of break down, soon. He knew it wasn’t just a thing angels went through, knew there were the moments where humans hurt. They could hurt just as much, with love being one of the causes of unbearable pain.

Love and loss, two things unmistakenly tied together in such a bittersweet way, changing fate and breaking hearts. If there was no love, there were no grief and loss. But if there was no loss, then life would never provide new opportunies. If there was no loss, Baekhyun wouldn't have had a shot at love. 

Life was complicated in many ways, mainly because so many strings were tied together even though they all appeared to be loose at first glance. There was never just one clear string tied to whatever decision someone made. Whether it was proposing to a lover, or taking ones own life, there was never just one reason. Everything linked together: happiness, love, pain, sadness. All of it. 

Baekhyun had had his fair share of pain and sadness in life and with the tides seemingly changing, it was a pretty dangerous place to find himself. After all, with happiness and love there was bound the be pain and sadness sometime.

In a way it had been easier to live at his lowest point, because when Baekhyun had lived out on the streets, things definitely hadn't been pretty, but at least he had known that things couldn't really get any worse for him. Being happy, however, the downside of it was that it could bring on a way more intense wave of sadness if things were to go wrong. 

He shouldn't think about that, of course he knew that thinking about possible negative emotions wouldn't help one bit, but he was only trying to make sense of human life and trying not to get disappointed. Because who knew, maybe Chanyeol would wake up tomorrow thinking he had been an idiot for trying with Baekhyun. He had no reason to think so, but that didn’t make it any less of a possibility.

As the fallen one reached the door to his apartment, a strange feeling creeped up on him. He paused on the last step, hand on the railing as he took a minute to figure out what felt wrong about the situation. It was as if something was definitely different about the scene in front of him, the corridor leading to his door, but he couldn't exactly put his finger on what it was. 

He stood there for quite some time, looking for what could be out of place, but when he couldn’t find anything he shook it off thinking maybe he was just going crazy after two nights away from home. He opened his door, realising it wasn't locked, and when he pushed it open he felt that same anxious feeling creep up on him even more.

Because if it was no longer locked, that meant someone had been inside. Or maybe still was.

Baekhyun slowly, quietly, dropped his bag in the hallway as he closed the door behind him, all while trying to see if he could make out any sounds coming from inside. Had someone tried to break into his apartment to steal whatever little valuables Baekhyun had? And if they had, were they still there? 

Like he had predicted, life was too good to be true. 

"Baekhyun! About time," The silence had been so deafening that the words uttered by the man in front of him hurt Baekhyun's ears. He stood in the doorway, frozen in shock as he took in his apartment, which he realised now looked exactly the same except for the fact that there was someone sitting on his couch, turned around so he could face him now.

Someone he knew very well, someone who had been his rock and support for so long, but whose presence now brought along uncertainty and fear. "Tae-ho," Baekhyun breathed out, not sure if he was supposed to be happy or not about seeing his old friend. It all depended on why on earth the guy was there in the first place.

Sure, they had promised to meet up when Baekhyun had taken Jaehyun’s body, but they had both known that that wouldn't actually be possible, not unless something had happened for which they were required to be in touch. It was exactly the reason why Baekhyun was worried about seeing that handsome demon sitting on his couch, and so he asked straight away, "why are you here?" 

Tae-ho stood up and opened his arms as he walked towards Baekhyun, blatantly refusing to answer his question, "oh, come on, is that how you welcome an old friend?" His smile made Baekhyun feel a little less wary, reminded him of all he had been through with his friend, and then he realised how stupid he was being about this.

Maybe it was just his mood, with the destructive thoughts from before still floating around in his mind’s eye. He should appreciate that no matter what the reason, he still got to see his best friend from hell. Quite literally. 

He laughed lowly, feeling some of the nerves dissolving into the air before he allowed Tae-ho to briefly wrap him up in his arms. Tae-ho squeezed him closer, dropped his head to Baekhyun’s shoulder, but it didn't last too long. Baekhyun wouldn't let it, not now he had a boyfriend whose love he didn’t want to put on the line, and he stepped back again so he could actually take a look at his friend. 

Tae-ho looked good, like he had grown quite a bit, and had obviously changed his usual clothes, changed from casual to a more sophisticated style. He looked devilish, exactly the way Baekhyun recalled him being, and somehow that felt comforting. At least some things had stayed the same.

"You look good," he told his friend as much. The demon quickly looked down his own body, as if he had to remind himself of what he looked like today, and then he flashed Baekhyun a dazzling smile, "thank you. You don't look too bad yourself, although the blonde hair makes you look way more innocent than I know you are." 

Baekhyun rolled his eyes at the comment and clicked his tongue, "sure, glad you still remember me. Does that mean you haven't replaced me yet?" He laughed, turning to walk to his fridge so he could get them both a drink as Tae-ho replied with an obvious lie, “of course I haven’t. Who do you take me for?”

Knowing not to believe that, Baekhyun rolled his eyes fondly, with his back still turned towards his friend. Knowing Tae-ho, it would only take a minute before he’d own up and tell him the truth. They had made a promise that through everything they’d be honest, needing to make sure that whatever demons were known for, they wouldn’t risk their friendship with lies. Forgetting Tae-ho’s biggest lie of him not harbouring any feelings for Baekhyun.  

Once Baekhyun closed his fridge again he turned to hand the can of beer to his friend, giving him this look of disbelief along with it, and as predicted, Tae-ho gave in to the silence Baekhyun had caused, a silence that had shown exactly how he hadn’t believed the comment.

Tae-ho took the beer before he shrugged, looking a little apologetic, as if he had any reason at all to explain himself towards Baekhyun, “fine. I mean, there’s someone? It’s just- it’s this newbie that doesn’t know what to do with himself and is flailing a lot. He’s kind of cute, reminds me a bit of you when we met. Such an attitude, but such a soft heart too.”

The demon smiled at the memory, one that made Baekhyun cringe more than anything, and he pouted slightly as he punched Tae-ho’s arm, “hey, I’m still older than you though. Back then I was only a newbie to hell, not to life.”

Their cans bumped into each other as they cheered, and then they both took a sip, letting silence surround them. It was a moment in which Baekhyun hoped Tae-ho would explain himself and his reason for being there, but his old friend only watched him with curious eyes until the fallen one felt too uncomfortable with it and he cleared his throat, "still though, I know this isn't a very everyday situation. I know you're not supposed to be here unless it's business. So, I guess you could say that I'm really curious as to why you're here, Tae-ho." 

The demon briefly nodded at that before he took his drink with him back to the couch, where he flopped back down in the exact same position as he had been in when Baekhyun had walked in. The other watched him for another moment, until Tae-ho started to talk, luring him closer again with his voice.

“I’ve been assigned the task of keeping an eye on your case,” Tae-ho started, head tipped back as he looked up at the ceiling, sounding like he knew he was getting Baekhyun’s full attention, “to see if there are any changes or any news at all, and well-“ the demon opened his arms and tipped his chin back down so he could look at Baekhyun as he smiled, “I’m here, aren’t I? That means there’s news!”

Baekhyun was too startled by the fact that his case was still opened now that he was gone, to really realise what Tae-ho was telling him. Because now that he was a human, it was supposed to be ‘case closed’ on his past, or so he had thought. It was what he had expected, at least.

With Baekhyun no longer in hell there was no reason to prove his innocence. When he signed the contract that tied him to this host body it was over, the chance of getting back his grace had vanished, and they could have easily given up on the case then. They should have done so as well, probably, but now that there was news, Baekhyun felt his heart drop all the way to the floor.

He tried to catch it with fumbling hands, before it would shatter into pieces, and in the end he barely managed to hold on to it. The memory of his fall hurt like a bitch and it brought him back to the period of his life he had been glad to leave behind, yet Tae-ho was here to tell him it wasn’t over. It wasn’t over, as if Baekhyun could have believed it ever would be.

“Wait, you know about everything now? All of it?” Baekhyun asked next, coming to another realistation. Because although he had told Tae-ho he had failed at his job as an angel, he had never fully explained himself. The whole story of what had happened was only known to a few people, one of them being Lucifer. It was due to him that there had been a case at all, but that was all way before Baekhyun had announced his wish to become human.

“Hmm,” his friend hummed as he stared at Baekhyun a little worriedly, “and man, do I pity you. Or not, I mean, if I would then I wouldn’t have ever met you, but damn I never realised the idiocy of those up in heaven. Their big-headedness is truly remarkable.” Tae-ho shook his head then, mouth full of beer again, and he decided then to put his can down.

Baekhyun did the same before he sat down, purposely leaving some space between their bodies, and he neatly folded his hands in his lap as he gave himself a moment to breathe. It didn’t feel like Tae-ho was judging him whatsoever, but he still felt ashamed of himself for not having told the story himself. What was his friend really thinking right now? Was he disgusted by Baekhyun as well or was he proud, being a demon by nature?

“At first when they told me I thought, ‘see, this is my Baekhyun, this is the cheeky-grinned guy I know and he belongs right down with me in hell,” Tae-ho admitted, his own cheeky grin plastered on his face, “but then, the more I heard about it, about how much of a commotion there had been about how apparently they had wronged you, the more I started feeling bad for you. If you did speak the truth then they cast you out unfairly, and that means that you don’t belong in hell whatsoever.”

Baekhyun didn’t answer, he didn’t want to make more statements for himself. He was tired of defending himself, of trying to convince everyone who’d listen that he was telling the truth. He had done it for so long, but nothing ever changed and he was sure that whatever news Tae-ho brought wouldn’t change that either.

“Yeah, well,” the fallen one finally shrugged, realising how the demon wasn’t going to speak again without some confirmation from Baekhyun, “sometimes shit just happens, right? I’m honestly pretty over it, it’s never going to change anyway. I have no proof, the only person that could prove my innocence was the one who ended up being my downfall.”

Tae-ho chuckled at Baekhyun’s depressed tone and he leaned in to punch his friend’s arm, “oh come on, you’re so down suddenly. You used to have such spirit, are you really okay with settling for this boring human life when your old life is actually within reach?”

It was a possibility Baekhyun knew didn’t exist. Even if somehow he’d be able to prove his innocence, heaven would never take him back. And even if they wanted to, Baekhyun was no longer interested in that. Because he had everything his heart desired now, and so heaven no longer sounded appealing at all.

“Yes,” he told Tae-ho, “I am. I have a boyfriend now, as well as friends and a stable job. Life isn’t perfect, I’m not bathing in money or spending my time partying like I used to in hell, but I’m happy. I’ve found a different kind of love, one that isn’t solely based on adoration and isn’t solely sex either. It’s probably hard for you to understand how that could make one happy, but I’m being honest.”

Staring at Baekhyun, Tae-ho didn’t reveal any of his feelings towards what Baekhyun had just said. The fallen one knew that his demon friend used to have feelings for him, but he didn’t even flinch whatsoever when he dropped how he had a boyfriend now. Tae-ho had mentioned someone new too, but Baekhyun doubted that it was anything serious based on what his friend had told him.

“Wow, look at you, huh?” Tae-ho laughed quietly, looking away from Baekhyun again, “all domestic, like an actual human. I wouldn’t have thought you’d be able to pull it off, honestly. When I said I’d see you soon I expected you to come running back within a month or so. I thought you’d miss the carefree lifestyle too much.”

If it wasn’t for the innocent sounding tone of his friend’s words, Baekhyun would have fucking punched him in the face. Thinking Baekhyun would give up so quickly, the fact that Tae-ho actually thought he was that weak, it kind of felt like getting stabbed. But he knew that Tae-ho loved living like a demon too much, he couldn’t possibly understand Baekhyun’s decision even if he tried.

“Fuck you, man,” he still cursed, unapologetically. “Did you really not know that was all a façade?” Baekhyun argued, sounding a little pissed off by now, like the way he felt, “I didn’t enjoy that life at all. It was my only way to get what I wanted, though. You just don’t know what you’re missing out on. You’ll never realise.”

Tae-ho appeared to be a little taken aback by the sudden confession and Baekhyun’s rough words, and he picked up his beer again, seemingly at a loss for words which he tried to cover up by drinking. The silence was uncomfortable, which was something Baekhyun had rarely experienced before with the other. Yet they had both gone through a year of growth without each other, they could have easily become very different people.

“Okay, fair enough,” Tae-ho spoke eventually, face twisted in some awkward expression, and he let his eyes fall to Baekhyun’s face, “so a boyfriend then? Going steady? What is he like?” he asked, either only trying to sound interested or unable to come across as genuine. Baekhyun didn’t know what to think of it, but he decided not to think too much right now.

He sighed as he was the one to look away this time, eyes cast down to his lap, thinking about Chanyeol, “he, uh, he’s handsome. Very tall and soft looking with huge eyes and ears, a smile that makes you smile as well, and he’s very kind hearted. He’s actually- he’s Jaehyun’s ex-boyfriend,” Baekhyun ended up admitting, “but he’s given me a chance and it just works.”

Tae-ho didn’t immediately respond, and when Baekhyun glanced up swiftly to see whatever look was etched on his face, he didn’t really get an answer. The second their eyes met, though, Tae-ho dragged the corners of his mouth up in a smile, almost forcefully. Baekhyun could tell it wasn’t sincere, but his question as to why wasn’t answered.

“You truly keep surprising me, Byun Baekhyun,” the demon spoke, his voice flat and emotionless, “I thought I had you figured out, but I am completely wrong it appears.” He nursed the can of beer between his hands, trying to come across as unbothered, but Baekhyun knew better. Still, he had told Tae-ho before even falling for Chanyeol that he had no feelings for the guy. He had been clear, so he couldn’t do anything about this. He just had to let it be.

“I guess. But enough about me, it’s really not all that interesting,” Baekhyun waved the topic of Chanyeol off, not wanting to receive more empty glances. If he was right about this, he was only hurting Tae-ho with talk about his boyfriend, so he wouldn’t do so again unless he really had to.

“If you say so,” Tae-ho replied, shrugging lightly, but it looked like he felt a little more relaxed already. He put his can back down on the table and leaned sideways so one half of his behind was raised some. His fingers reached for his back pocket, searching for something that was hidden inside, and Baekhyun smiled as he raised an eyebrow at the move.

Tae-ho spoke up again, still searching for whatever he had stuck in his back pocket, and Baekyun couldn’t help but snort. “Back to the reason I came here then,” Tae-ho went on, “I know you’ve given up, but I think, well I’m pretty sure actually, that I have found your proof.”

It was then that the demon finally retrieved a folded piece of paper from his jeans, and he flopped back while turning to face Baekhyun, “tell me again, what did they say was the reason you failed again?” Baekhyun realised soon enough that Tae-ho wasn’t asking him that because he really didn’t know the answer. No, the demon was building up to a big reveal, wanting Baekhyun to think back to his past.

Reluctantly he did, remembering the words said to him while he was being held back by multiple hands, facing an arch angel to hear his punishment right before his wings were taken.

 

_Byun Baekhyun, your first and only job was to protect Hae Minjae, which you have very clearly failed in. We have been watching you since we received an anonymous report that told us you have been planning to take Hae Minjae to yourself. This, as you should be aware of, is against the rules._

_Hae Minjae was supposed to have children that would be important to the future of humanity, but instead he died only months after marrying his wife. You have been accused of being responsible for his early death and the end of his bloodline. The recollections we have of your years with Hae Minjae show a deep bond between human and angel which surpasses the expectations of an angel._

_These memories we see as enough evidence to support the claim that you have purposely let Hae Minjae out of your watch so he could die, allowing you to be together with him in heaven. Knowing this is a sin you shall receive punishment in the form of never being able to see Hae Minjae again. We are taking your wings and casting you out of heaven._

“They said I had purposely let him die, that I had wanted to keep Min to myself and because of that the predicted bloodline had died out,” Baekhyun repeated quietly, finding it hard to say the name he had banned from his mind since his fall. He would never again be with that man, so there was no point in thinking of him. It would only hurt, remembering the first person he had cared so much for.

Hae Minjae had been his first human, his first job, and Baekhyun had been with him for years. Nine human years to be exact, from Minjae’s sixteenth birthday up to his death when he was twenty-three. He had been Baekhyun’s best friend, and Baekhyun had loved him in his own way but not in the way he had been supposed to love him.

Yet they had worked, or so Baekhyun had thought. He had thought that he was doing a great job, that he was fine, but in the end he hadn’t been able to protect Minjae. His love simply hadn’t been strong enough.

Baekhyun had been there the moment he took his last breath, and he had tried so hard but there had been nothing within his powers he could have done to save him. It was why Baekhyun thought that maybe it had been meant to end there for Minjae, and that was also the argument he had used to defend himself, but it had been no use.

The angels had repeated how the future was not going to be the way it was supposed to be due to Baekhyun’s failing, and for that reason as well as making sure he would never see his Minjae again, they had needed to get rid of him. It was too big of a deal to keep someone who had fucked up that immensely around, ready to make the same mistakes again. Really, Baekhyun would have understood if he had actually felt like he had been wrong, but that hadn’t been the case.

“Exactly, they claimed that because Minjae died, he wouldn’t have children and therefore everything that was supposed to happen would change, right?” Tae-ho basically repeated what Baekhyun had said, making the fallen one sigh and nod, wondering why he had needed to remember this all if Tae-ho could have just said this in the first place.

“Well, look at this,” the demon grinned, finally sticking out the piece of paper he had taken out of his pocket a minute earlier. Baekhyun took it, feeling the warmth of it between his fingers, and as he looked at it he finally felt some curiosity spark inside. What was this?

As Baekhyun unfolded the paper he realised it wasn’t actually a paper, it was a photograph. The glossy side of it caught the light, making it Baekhyun had to tilt the picture some to make the image clear, and when he took in the person in the crumpled frame, he felt his eyebrows come together in confusion.

In the picture a young boy was posing, hair carefully styled and eyes lined with kohl, smiling at the camera a little shyly. The boy looked a lot like Hae Minjae, although his features were softer, more feminine. He couldn’t be that old, and Baekhyun was sure from the picture that this wasn’t taken back when he had been an angel. It wasn’t actually a picture of Hae Minjae in his early years, no matter how much he looked like it.

Slowly but surely the puzzle pieces were starting to fall into place in his mind, and Tae-ho was already grinning at him so brightly, so excitedly, when Baekhyun finally looked up at him again. His eyes must have shown the questionmarks that were floating around in his mind, and they made Tae-ho laugh as he clapped his hands together once.

Leaning forward into Baekhyun’s space, he whispered, “flip the picture.” Baekhyun did, turning the paper in his hands and meeting the scrawled words on the back of it. _‘Hae Minsu – Dangcheon high school. July 2016. 16 years old’._ It said, making the picture over twelve years old. The boy in the picture would now be 28 years old and grown up, and Baekhyun wondered.

“Wouldn’t this be exactly the proof you need?” Tae-ho mused, his hands slapping his thighs eagerly, "they were wrong. All they need to do is talk to this guy to know, and then they’ll have to admit they were wrong. This is your shot, Baekhyun. They can’t say you fucked up the future because Minjae had a son. He had a son named Hae Minsu, and so those fuckers were wrong.”

Baekhyun stared at the picture so hard that he could feel his eyes almost pop out, his heart up so high in his chest that it was cutting off his windpipe. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think properly either. Because Tae-ho was right, or that was what it looked like.

Because Minjae, he had a son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can I just take a minute here to say how fucking beautiful Byun Baekhyun is in the CBX comeback teaser? I mean that shot with the flowers is pure gold. 
> 
> Anyway, Thank you all for still reading this! It means a lot to me <3 so all the love to you ^^ 


	24. Ignite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Instead of his brain coming up with anything fitting to say, Baekhyun completely blacked out again. Neither Tae-ho nor Chanyeol were saying anything though, as they were waiting for him, and the silence in his apartment was chilling, making him actually shiver. He was very much aware there were two pairs of curious eyes on him, waiting for his next move, but he only cared about Chanyeol, only wanted to know what he was thinking and what he knew now

Baekhyun felt as if in a matter of weeks his life had changed so much that it was almost incomparable to every change he had gone through in all the months before that one night on his way home where he had bumped into a tall idiot. From meeting Chanyeol, to dating Chanyeol, to falling in love with Chanyeol, to finding Tae-ho in his apartment telling him that Minjae had a son. It was as if his world, everything that he had known, had been tipping over, only to now fully flip upside down.  

It was almost too much to believe it was real, yet here he was, living that reality even though it felt like it was nothing but a strange never-ending dream, and it was honestly confusing the shit out of him. Because life had just got a thousand times more complicated now that he knew about Hae Minsu’s existence.

Somehow it didn’t feel good knowing that everything Baekhyun had gone through after his fall could have been prevented in the first place. And in the end, that was what it was all about. If Tae-ho was right and this man really was Minjae’s son, then Baekhyun’s punishment had been unjustified. If this was indeed Minjae’s son, then Baekhyun was as innocent as he had felt he was, and that hurt.

He wished he could feel some sort of victory, something that would make him go ‘see, I’ll prove them wrong’, but all he felt was this bitter disappointment at knowing he was right. Honestly, it would have been easier to accept a truth where he had in fact failed his job as an angel, because in that case he wouldn’t have wasted half of his life living outside of the place he where was supposed to be.

If it was true, if Minsu was Minjae’s son, he could have stayed in heaven as an angel. He could have kept his wings and could have fallen for a new human and most importantly, he could have stayed in touch with Minjae. Maybe. Hopefully.

Baekhyun knew that if life had been easy, that if he could have had had a say in it, that that would have been the outcome. But maybe, looking at it from a less sunny perspective, Baekhyun realised that it was also plausible that if he had stayed in heaven, he would have never fallen in love anyway. Sure, maybe Minjae was his first experience, unable to really make him love him as he was stuck in a phase of admiration, and maybe that would have changed the second time around. Or, maybe it was just meant to be Chanyeol for him.

It was stupid to think that, that he and Chanyeol were meant to be, but for some reason unknown to him, a part of him wouldn’t let the idea go. After all, if he were truly innocent, then his fall had been for nothing, right? It was what Baekhyun had thought for a long time, probably all his years in hell had been fuelled by the memory of heaven’s wrongdoing, but the longer he spent time on earth, the easier it was to come to the conclusion that maybe his fall had had an actual purpose.

Maybe it didn’t matter whether he was innocent or not, because it had been fate for him to fall. Fate for him to go through hell and fate for him to get Jaehyun’s body, which looked so much like his angelic form. Maybe, such a thing existed.

Baekhyun had had the thought a few times since meeting Chanyeol, whenever he felt how lucky he was to have his boyfriend with him. The idea of it having been fate that had possibly brought them together was more to him than just a romantic daydream. To Baekhyun, it was the hope that somehow, somewhere, his unhappy prayers as an angel had been heard, and god himself had answered them.

Baekhyun figured that both hell and homeless life had been nothing but a way to get him to his happiness. A test, to see if he was really willing to go through fire, quite literally, to reach his goal. He had done that, had kept on fighting for so long, and now he got to taste the fruits of his labour, which made this news all the more confusing.

Was it a way to say ‘now you’ve had your taste of love, it’s time to come back up, where you belong’? Or was it another test to see just how much Baekhyun wanted what was within his reach? Was this nothing but a test to see whether Chanyeol made him happy enough to stay a mortal? It wasn’t clear whatsoever, and Baekhyun hated that. Sure, he was used to complicated things now, because human life was full of complications, but usually when it came to heaven, none of it was, and that was what annoyed him.

“But, are you sure this isn’t just someone who looks like him? Are you sure this is actually Minjae’s son? I mean, no offense, but you don’t even know Min,” Baekhyun started, eyes still glued to the picture between his fingers in utter disbelief of the news. It sure looked like a mini version of his Min, but he knew that some people just looked very much alike. It could easily be someone else altogether.

“Baek, babe, do you really think I’d come here if I wasn’t one hundred percent certain?” Tae-ho replied, one eyebrow raised in a way that told Baekhyun ‘who do you think I am?’. Apparently Baekhyun was very good at offending his demon friend, because he kept on doing it. He couldn’t help it, though. The fear of getting his hopes up only to be wrong was simply too nerve-wrecking.

“Don’t ‘babe’ me,” Baekhyun argued, “and alright then, what did you do to become a hundred percent certain? Did you do a DNA test?” he cocked an eyebrow, not yet wanting to believe the demon on his word, no matter how well he knew that Tae-ho truly wouldn’t lie to him. The guy clearly cared too much about the fallen one to hurt him like that.

“No, I didn’t have to,” Tae-ho huffed as he rolled his eyes at Baekhyun’s tactics, “I went to see his wife. Or should I say widow? She remarried, but that was years after she had Minsu.” Taking another sip of his beer, Tae-ho left Baekhyun hanging for another while, which was annoying the fuck out of him.

“She told me how she found out she was pregnant about a week after his death. She showed me pictures of her pregnancy and everything. Told me how much it broke her heart, how much she cried knowing she’d never get to tell Minjae the news, but she was also thankful to have another piece of him live on,” Tae-ho eventually explained, using a light tone, almost as if he was bored telling this story.

“I swear to god, if you’re wrong or lying-“ Baekhyun started, only to be cut off by his friend, who grinned at him brightly, “I knew you’d react like this, though,” he replied. As he crossed his arms he shrugged almost carelessly, like he was the best person to ever exist, as he went on, “it’s why I arranged for us to meet Hae Minsu and talk to him in person. We can even go see his mother if you really don’t believe him. Maybe if you see for yourself, you’ll realise that it’s really Minjae’s son.”

Baekhyun didn’t really have anything to say to that, because it was really the best option he had. He sighed, though, brought up a hand to brush it through his hair, and tried to make sense of it all.

Meeting Minjae’s son, finding out the truth, it was all so surreal. And if it turned out to be really him, things would change even more. It would all turn into such a mess, the whole trying to prove his innocence. He knew he’d have to tell Chanyeol then, all of it, and somehow the thought was terrifying.

“Okay, I’ll give it a shot,” Baekhyun eventually replied, knowing that no matter what, he had to try. It would kill him if he’d never find out the truth, and on top of that he would love to meet Minjae’s child, to see what became of the one thing left behind by the man he couldn’t protect. He had to do it, if only to get the closure he wished he could have had all those years ago.

Tae-ho made a sound that almost sounded like a whoop, and he jumped up high enough for his ass to leave the couch for a second. Looking victorious, as if he had already won this whole thing, he grinned at Baekhyun, “good. Good, you won’t regret this. Just wait and see, okay, I will make sure they will fucking apologise for that they did to you. I’ll be your hero, Baek, I promise.”

It was so out of character for a demon that Baekhyun almost started doubting if the man in front of him was really Tae-ho, or just someone dressed as him with the same facial features. Honestly, the excitement in his face at the idea of fixing things for Baekhyun, it had to be fuelled by the feelings he had (had) for Baekhyun. It had to be.

“Yeah, sure thing,” he replied a little off-handedly, not wanting to pay too much attention to it and feed Tae-ho’s ego with it. The last thing he wanted was for his friend to get even more big-headed than he already was. “Anyway, in the meantime, are you going back to hell until then or…?” Baekhyun decided to ask, having a feeling he knew the answer already, but he had to hear it for himself.

“What? No way,” Tae-ho replied, as expected, an almost angry frown gracing his face, “I finally have the chance to hang out with you again and you expect me to go back to hell while we wait before we can go see Minsu? No, nu-uh, I’m seriously going to make the best of the time I have with you and that means I’m staying. Right here.”

Baekhyun sighed, feeling a little uneasy. It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to see Tae-ho, because he did, but the problem was that it could complicate so many things. Especially things with Chanyeol. It was nice to see his old friend, but his old friend was a talkative demon that thought with his dick rather than his brains half of the time, and that could really be an issue.

“Okay, okay, I get it. You’re sleeping on the couch, though, no arguing about that,” Baekhyun decided to get straight to the point with his rules, while Tae-ho was actually still listening to him, “also, no leaving my apartment unless you’re with me or have my permission. I don’t need the whole world to find out who you are.” ‘Especially not Chanyeol’, he didn’t say.

“Fucking hell, Baekhyun,” Tae-ho complained instantly, “you really don’t trust me, do you?” he asked, his hand coming down on the fallen one’s knee, where it was instantly pushed away, and Baekhyun used some of his snappy side to make a final remark, one he had always used on Tae-ho when he had whined, “and for good reason: at the end of the day you’re still a full-blood demon.”

~

And of course, as Baekhyun had already predicted it would only be a matter of time before he got a taste of that full-blood demon’s character, which was why he watched shit go down only two days later. Two days, that was all it took for Tae-ho’s presence to fuck up his life.

It all happened when Baekhyun came home after his fill-in shift, with Jongin being ill quite unexpectedly while the bar had been filled with people ready to throw their money away. Minseok had begged him, and of course Baekhyun hadn’t been able to refuse his whining. He hadn’t been eager to get to work in the first place, mostly nervous about leaving Tae-ho on his own, but when he arrived back home he wished he had never left for it at all.

Sure, he had made quite a lot of money that night, the tips having been pretty good as Baekhyun had been able to show off his collar bones as well as his mixology skills, which was a pretty lethal combination even if he said so himself. Also, having helped out his friend, Minseok now owed him a favour that would come in handy as blackmail in the future, too. However, he just knew the second he set foot in his apartment that neither of those things had been worth it. 

Because when he walked in, the first thing he heard was Chanyeol's voice, loud and thunderous, and that was enough to freeze Baekhyun in his spot immediately. He stood there in the doorway, keys still jingling in his hand while the door swung open further, but Baekhyun himself was absolutely unmoving as he took in the scene in front of him. 

Tae-ho – the fucker - was sitting on the couch, much like he had done two days ago when Baekhyun had found him there, leaning back on it like he owned the world, with this huge shit-eating grin on his face. Across from him was Chanyeol, his boyfriend Chanyeol, who was sitting in Baekhyun's favourite spot: the windowsill. Or well, sitting… he was so focused on Tae-ho it was more like he was standing.

Baekhyun’s boyfriend looked absolutely furious, with his eyebrows appearing to have grown together in a gloomy frown. His mouth was a downturned smile with his cheeks red with anger as he sat on his hands to clearly hold himself back from either throwing something Tae-ho's way or rushing over to him to get his hands around his throat so he could choke the demon. 

Baekhyun knew that by reacting that way he was only fuelling Tae-ho’s grin, for it only made his ego inflate that much more, and in turn that clearly led to a more infuriated Chanyeol. This would clearly go on until it would reach a point where he would really not be able to hold back. And then, god, if Tae-ho were to use his powers, shit would get ugly real quick.

It was absolute luck that Baekhyun had arrived before anything bad had happened at all, and he knew from that fact that Chanyeol couldn’t have gotten here too long ago. Still, Tae-ho didn’t need a lot of time

"Are you sure we're talking about the same Baekhyun?” Baekhyun heard his boyfriend say, all but spitting the words at Tae-ho in anger, and they made Baekhyun’s heart skip a fucking beat, because for one, it was incredibly hot to see his boyfriend like that, but two: he knew he was in deep shit.

“Because that doesn't sound like the Baekhyun I know! Are you trying to make me jealous?! Do you want to play me and get him to yourself? Because that would be weak, you know," Chanyeol kept ranting, obviously not having heard his boyfriend come in, but Baekhyun knew Tae-ho had. He could tell from the way the guy’s eyes had briefly flitted to the side.

The demon's grin slowly grew as he realised what that meant, but he kept his gaze on Chanyeol a while longer instead of turning to look at Baekhyun. He even made sure to throw back a sly, "are you sure you really know Baekhyun then?" before he eventually turned his head and stared straight at the man in question, "hi, Baekhyun." 

With his presence now acknowledged, Baekhyun felt like he had been finally released from his frozen state. As if he Tae-ho had pressed pause when he had first entered as a way to watch this all go down, only to press play again now that he was done playing his part of the game.

Baekhyun felt his muscles relax, and his legs moved when he tried to use them this time. Carefully calculating his moves, he stepped inside and let the door fall shut behind him as he mumbled a quiet, "hi."

His cheeks were heating up quickly, his mind already racing as he tried to think of a way to explain to Chanyeol why there was some other demon in his house as well as finding words to defend himself, but that was difficult to do without knowing what exactly Tae-ho had spilled about him.

Instead of his brain coming up with anything fitting to say, Baekhyun completely blacked out again. Neither Tae-ho nor Chanyeol were saying anything though, as they were waiting for him, and the silence in his apartment was chilling, making him actually shiver. He was very much aware there were two pairs of curious eyes on him, waiting for his next move, but he only cared about Chanyeol, only wanted to know what he was thinking and what he knew now.

Having found his determination again, Baekhyun took off his coat and dropped it on his single chair before walking in further, towards his couch and then straight past it. He walked past Tae-ho like he wasn’t even there, already plotting how to kill the demon later, but for now his brain somehow decided that the best way to go about this was to act as if nothing strange had happened. As if it was normal that he had found the two of them arguing.

And so he made his way over to Chanyeol and flopped down in his lap, feeling how the move surprised his boyfriend enough for him to actually catch him. Good, because Baekhyun wasn’t sure he would be able to take rejection now. Deciding he had to keep it going now, he placed his hands on the taller's face only a second later, tilting his chin upwards so he could kiss him. 

Chanyeol's surprise could be felt in that kiss, for he was pretty unresponsive to it, but Baekhyun didn't care because what mattered was that he had initiated it. He hadn't run away, hadn't said 'I can explain' as if he had kept a dark secret from his lover. It wasn't like that, and he didn't want to make it appear like that, even though some explaining sure had to be done. 

"Hey," Baekhyun whispered softly, the word meant for Chanyeol's ears only, and when he didn't receive a proper reply he sighed and looked back at Tae-ho, which was where Chanyeol's gaze still seemed to be resting. "I see you've met," he concluded then, speaking to both of them. 

"Yes," Tae-ho was the one who answered instead of Chanyeol, and the demon was still looking quite smug with himself, if only a tiny bit less now that Baekhyun was throwing daggers at him with his eyes, "loverboy here arrived not to long ago, wanting to surprise you with his visit, and I invited him in, saying you would probably be here soon seen as you had already texted me you were leaving." 

Baekhyun looked back at Chanyeol, who was watching the demon with fiery eyes and a set jaw, which didn't make sense because Chanyeol was usually a huge softie when he met new people. Baekhyun clearly remembered him meeting Minseok and Kyungsoo for the first time, which had been easy. It had taken less than half an hour for them to get along, for there to be nothing but smiles, which was how Baekhyun knew something was wrong.

Chanyeol never judged anyone before he got to know them enough to form an opinion, which meant that in the twenty minutes it had taken Baekhyun to get there, something must have happened between them. Or, better worded, Tae-ho must have said something to make Chanyeol have this intense reaction so quickly. Luckily, the demon was self-centred enough to explain the situation without Baekhyun having to ask for it.

"At first he tried to slap me for being here, thinking I was a burglar, but when I said I was staying with you he became very curious and so I told him I was an old friend and lover, and we got talking about you and our past together. And then I found out he knew you are a fallen angel and so I started sharing more and then he got all defensive and agressive on me, saying I'm only lying," Tae-ho managed to make himself sound so innocent, when Baekhyun knew he was anything but.

Of course he had played Chanyeol like that, he was a demon after all, but Chanyeol had fallen for it all so easily too. Sure, Baekhyun knew it was very likely that Tae-ho had been honest in what he had shared, or mostly honest, but he had without a doubt worded it in such a way that the truth ended up twisted into something ugly. And now Chanyeol wasn’t looking at him, he wasn’t returning his kisses and it all felt wrong.

Tae-ho was so easy to predict by now too, and Baekhyun knew how that comment would make Chanyeol get defensive again before it even happened, even though he didn’t know his boyfriend well enough to predict just how far he’d take things.

He could see Chanyeol’s nostrils flaring and his hands were ready to be pulled from Baekhyun's waist, where they had rested before, which was why Baekhyun put a hand on his chest in order to stop him. It was a silent command, but it spoke 'stop' loud and clearly. 

Sending Tae-ho a glare that was supposed to shut him up as well, Baekhyun tried desperately to get some more control of the situation. However, Tae-ho was still a demon, which meant he was pretty stupid and didn’t understand Baekhyun's look, and even if he did then he was clearly ignoring it on purpose. "What?" He blatantly asked in answer to the glare, and he made things even worse when he opened his mouth again, "he didn't believe you had sex with half the demon population and that you-"

"Shut the fuck up!" Baekhyun yelled suddenly, feeling the anger inside of him having bubbled up so abruptly that he just exploded, his voice booming and threatening. Tae-ho shut up instantly, staring at Baekhyun almost expressionlessly, a hint of shock passing over his face before it disappeared just as quickly again. He wasn’t going to let it show how he was impressed, but the fact that he actually stopped talking said enough. At least Baekhyun still had that bit of power over him.

"Just shut up," the fallen one repeated, "shut up and leave. Let me be with Chanyeol," Baekhyun's voice slowly lost its power and volume. He sighed at his old friend and nudged his head towards the door when Tae-ho didn't seem to understand him, "go, please." 

When the demon turned his head to look back at the door, he balled his hands into fists and raised his chin up high. No one would just throw out a demon like that, no one but Baekhyun it seemed. And he was sure that if this hadn’t been a good friend, that if Tae-ho didn’t know him, he would have burned for the order, but not now.

“Fine,” Tae-ho’s voice was as expressionless as his face, and Baekhyun knew he didn’t want to show defeat. It was also why he had to make another stab at Baekhyun before he actually turned away to walk to the door, “just think about how stable your relationship really is if he doesn’t even know about your past, about me.”

He slammed the door on the way out, leaving the two boys in another deadly silence, and Baekhyun wished he knew where to start with this. He hadn’t been human long enough to understand which complicated thoughts could be running through Chanyeol’s head, but he felt the panic in himself as his boyfriend’s hands dropped from his waist now that he was aware of where he had put them, and his sigh was audible to Baekhyun as he was sitting so close to him.

And Baekhyun started rambling, letting his worried heart spill what he was feeling, “I’m sorry for not telling you he was here, but I didn’t know how to explain it all. I mean, telling you about Tae-ho would lead to me telling you so much more that it would take hours and hours, and seen as it’s my past and was, or used to be, irrelevant to my life now, I didn’t want to rush into all of that too quickly,” Baekhyun started, hoping it would in some ways help Chanyeol understand why he had kept everything from him.

When Chanyeol didn’t immediately reply, Baekhyun knew that he had to try something else, which was why he pushed himself up from his boyfriend’s lap and started walking. He made his way to his kitchenette, getting out the rice wine that Chanyeol had brought him the night he came over to give him his heart. It felt like forever ago now, back when things had been easier and less complicated, but he had remembered Chanyeol saying he had brought it in case Baekhyun would kick him out and he’d be left outside, licking his wounds.

Right now kind of felt like a fitting time for them to be drinking it together, which was why he got out two bowls and two ladles which he all carried with him to the table. He sat down on his knees and put everything down before he picked up the bottle of rice wine and flipped it, mixing the liquid well before he opened it and filled both bowls.

Chanyeol didn’t make any opposing sounds, only watched Baekhyun fill their bowls without making a sound, and he decided then to sit down on the other side of the table, right across from Baekhyun. He quietly thanked him when Baekhyun pushed a bowl towards him, and he carefully picked up the ladle between his fingers as he stared at the milky white liquid.

“Can you please say something?” Baekhyun asked after another minute of silence, feeling like he was really going crazy now, “I can take yelling and anger, but I can’t take silence.” He was begging slightly, his tone clearly showing how desperate he was, but Chanyeol only mumbled a reply, “well, good to know. Another thing I’ve learned about you then.”

The careless answer made Baekhyun angry himself, feeling that it was unfair of Chanyeol to make this about not knowing him well enough. It shouldn’t be about that, about how little they knew about each other, it should be about _what_ exactly he had learnt. “That’s not fair. We’ve only been together for a short period of time now, it’s not like I know everything about you either,” he argued, sounding a little irritated, “if you have a problem with what Tae-ho said then fucking tell me, don’t be this passive aggressive instead.”

His words made Chanyeol look at him, the fierceness back in his eyes as he was clearly as annoyed with Baekhyun as Baekhyun was with him. “Oh, so you want me to tell you how disgusted I felt thinking about you sleeping around so much?” Chanyeol brought out first, this clearly being the biggest issue for him right now. “You on your knees doing to others what you did to me, you on your back letting whoever wanted a night of fun to have their way with you?”

Baekhyun swallowed as he looked away, feeling his heart break a little for the fact that Chanyeol was disgusted with him, even if he understood him. Sometimes he had been disgusted even with himself for the things he had allowed to happen, but he had been so determined to reach his goal that it hadn’t mattered. It was something Tae-ho hadn’t ever really understood and so Baekhyun hadn’t bothered to explain himself, but Chanyeol, he was different.

“You don’t get what hell is like,” Baekhyun answered sternly, “it’s either _you_ take control or get taken control of. Everyone fucks each other over for a little more power, a little more status, and I was a fallen angel. If I hadn’t worked myself up, I would have ended up on a leash being someone else’s pet, so I did what I had to do to get where I am now.”

He could tell how Chanyeol didn’t want to look at him, and actually Baekhyun was glad because he wasn’t sure what would happen if he’d see the repulsion on his face. “Tae-ho may think I’ve slept with half the demon population, but that is an absolute exaggeration,” Baekhyun went on, “every demon I slept with was able to get me something, it all had a purpose, apart from maybe the times I slept with Tae-ho. But hey, if you want me to be honest, I can admit to that. Tae-ho was my rock in hell, he was my best friend, and those times where I slept with him were pretty much the only times I actually enjoyed myself.”

Chanyeol’s jaw was set as he slammed down the bowl of wine hard enough to make it spill some on the table, and Baekhyun knew it was likely jealousy to make him act this way. At least jealousy was an emotion he could understand. He had felt it often enough once he first got to know his boyfriend, because he knew he had had competition. Chanyeol’s past was Jaehyun, a stable relationship, and did that idiot really not see how that was much more difficult to compete with than meaningless sex?

“So you were with him? You and Tae-ho, you were a thing? And he’s staying here with you now?” Chanyeol asked then, or more like demanded, and he looked up at Baekhyun with an unreadable expression in his eyes.

Baekhyun was happy to hear he was asking questions, though. At least now he wasn’t shying away, wasn’t holding in all his anger. It came pouring out like the wine from the bottle they shared. “Not exclusively,” he replied, “I know he had feelings for me, even though that’s rare for demons to experience and I never really trusted whether those feelings were real enough for him to really care for me and me alone, but I felt nothing in return. Nothing past friendship, at least,” Baekhyun answered him, his voice turning softer slowly, “do you really think I’d lie to you about never having been in love before?”

“I don’t know,” Chanyeol admitted, “I don’t know about a lot of things. It sure sounded like you’ve been in love before.” He sounded slightly bitter saying that, and Baekhyun felt himself grow a little more defensive again. Because why was his boyfriend acting this way? Why was he so overcome with resentment and jealousy when it literally had nothing to do with the way they were now?

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Baekhyun commanded, throwing it out without a care, and he dropped the ladle loudly in his bowl, “you think you know my feelings better than myself? Care to elaborate then?” He felt like he was ruining everything with this conversation, but he couldn’t help it. He refused to let Chanyeol’s words actually get to him.

“Isn’t that what you had with that one guy, that Minjae, was it?” Chanyeol snapped, crossing his arms in front of him which made him look like a toddler. Maybe he watched his students a bit too much, Baekhyun briefly thought before he let out a dry laugh in response.

He wasn’t angry at Chanyeol though, because he knew that this part of the story had surely been twisted. Tae-ho had told Chanyeol about Minjae, a story that he didn’t even know half the details of, which meant now Baekhyun truly had to explain the whole damn story in order to set the record straight.

Fucking Tae-ho. Fucking Chanyeol.

“Fuck you,” he brought out weakly, shoving his bowl of rice wine away from him before he pushed himself up. He was close to tears, he could tell, and it made him want to rush out of the room, but that would be weak, and then where would he go? This was _his_ apartment after all.

So he stomped to his favourite spot in the windowsill, passing Chanyeol in the process, even though he didn’t stop to look at him for one second, scared that it would really make him bust into tears. He curled himself up in his favourite seat, legs up to his chest as he stared outside and pointedly ignored his boyfriend’s presence. In fact, he wouldn’t actually care whether Chanyeol left right now or if he stayed. He just didn’t want to think about it, his chest hurt too much.

It was so unfair that life was like this. For Baekhyun, to have been put through all the pain he had experienced only to have a brief taste of happiness before it got snatched away again, it was cruel and served like a much more fitting punishment than being in actual hell had done.

And as he sat there, watching the unsuspicious people on his street, he figured that maybe that had been the point. Maybe Baekhyun had been meant to find his damnation on earth, so close to love yet also miles away. Chanyeol was right next to him, yet Baekhyun felt like they were on entirely different planets, just staring at each other from a distance, yelling whatever they had to say. Were they really meant to be together like he had thought before? Or was Baekhyun meant to live on his own forever? He wasn’t sure what his fate was, only that right now, it hurt.

His boyfriend had somehow sensed that he had struck a nerve with his comment, as if Baekhyun’s rough stomping hadn’t been enough to make him realise that. It was either that or Baekhyun’s reply had left him stunned, which he didn’t get that quickly.

Chanyeol sat quietly with his back towards Baekhyun as the fallen one fought the tears that had been brought on by the memories Chanyeol’s words had made resurface. They hadn’t been this vivid when he had talked about it with Tae-ho, likely because he had still been in shock then, but now they hit him in full force.

The image of Minjae’s unconscious body slumped in that damned carseat, with blood gushing out of his head, was possibly the worst memory Baekhyun had. It sometimes still haunted him, mostly sneaked up on him in his dreams, but otherwise he had felt like he had been able to put it behind him, for the most part. It had been easier on him because no one on earth knew exactly what had happened.

Kyungsoo came closest, because he knew a bit about Baekhyun’s fall and the commotion there had been at that time. Kyungsoo knew that Baekhyun had supposedly failed his job and that his human had died at the wrong time, but he didn’t know who that human was and he didn’t know what had caused his death. He had asked the fallen one exactly once to elaborate on it, but Baekhyun had ignored the question and acted as if he hadn’t heard it, and Kyungsoo had respected his choice not to talk about it.

No one knew how Minjae had been his life, how Baekhyun had spent so many years protecting him that he had felt more like family than his actual parents. He had watched Minjae grow up, from an insecure teenage boy with braces into a handsome young man with a lot of confidence to match his intelligence.

They had been best friends, even once Minjae found a girlfriend when he was nineteen, who ended up being the girl he would marry. It had always been Minjae and Baekhyun. Sleepovers, picnics in the park, bedroom dance parties and more, they had always been together.

Through Minjae, Baekhyun had learnt a lot about mortals and their lives. About their emotions, about what it was like growing up so quickly and what exactly sex was. Not only that, he also got to see what it looked like to be in love. He had been able to to see Minjae go through all those phases of personal growth, got to guide him too, and Baekhyun knew he had done his job well once Minjae proposed to his girlfriend. Or so he had throught.

Up until Minjae’s nineteenth birthday, Baekhyun had kept it a secret that he was an angel. He had wanted to make sure that he could trust his best friend, but he had been dying to share the truth ever since the start. Maybe it had been because he of his inexperience, because he got scolded by his mom soon enough that it could all fall apart if Minjae were to rat him out. But Baekhyun had been lucky, because Minjae had been nothing like that. He would have never told on Baekhyun.

“I’m sorry,” Baekhyun heard the words as they entered the fog of thoughts in his mind, and he paused on his path down memory lane to look up at Chanyeol, who was obviously the one who had uttered them. The tall idiot watched him almost apologetically, as if he had realised something by watching Baekhyun caught up in his own little word, and the fallen one wondered just how much his face had told him during those moments lost in thought, “that wasn’t- I guess I’m not being fair.”

Chanyeol didn’t stop there, “I know that I’m jealous, I know that’s my problem, Baekhyun. I know that my anger is only directed at you now because I know so little, but you need to try and understand me as well. Remember how I said I don’t give up? How when I set my mind to something I fight for it?”

His boyfriend waited for him then, for him to acknowledge how he remembered, and when Baekhyun gave a single nod in confirmation, he managed to shake up Baekhyun’s heart again with a few simple words, “that’s you now. You’re what I set my mind to, and hearing all of this from someone who has had you as intimately as I have, it doesn’t sit right with me.”

The words were very honest and Baekhyun admired his boyfriend for that. The fact that Chanyeol could take a step back and look at himself, look at where he went wrong and force Baekhyun to look at it as well, it was such a good quality to have. If Chanyeol could do it, then maybe Baekhyun should too. He should at least try to.

“I’m sorry too,” Baekhyun replied, his arms still curled around his knees so he could hug them to his chest, “I wish I could have been the one to open up about it myself, rather than have you hear it from Tae-ho. I’m sorry for feeling too insecure to share these things with you so soon, and all because I’m worried that you won’t accept me. I should know better, but I don’t.”

Chanyeol chuckled at Baekhyun’s words for some reason he didn’t voice, and when Baekhyun looked his way again he saw his boyfriend was smiling as he crawled closer to him. His hand reached for Baekhyun’s arm, on which he tugged in order to get it down to his level. Sitting there on the floor, Chanyeol’s head barely reached Baekhyun’s thigh, but the taller didn’t let that stop him.

“Silly,” Chanyeol spoke as his fingers trailed down the arm he had pulled free, all the way down to Baekhyun’s hand. He took it in his and lifted it to his lips, which he pressed to Baekhyun’s skin, “you should have known I will always accept you.” He made it sound so loving, like they hadn’t been fighting just a minute ago, and Baekhyun wanted to believe him but didn’t want to assume they were okay again so quickly.

“Don’t say that, it’s not something you can promise. No one can,” Baekhyun argued, his legs sliding down without the hold he had on them, to which Chanyeol responded by resting his cheek against Baekhyun’s leg and shrugging his shoulders. Like he didn’t give a fuck. Baekhyun in turn kept stressing his point, “Really, though, I’m not seeing that as a promise.”

“Fine, then don’t,” Chanyeol replied easily, staring up at Baekhyun, “but really, I’m sorry. I wish I hadn’t directed my anger towards you and let you explain it yourself. I realise that some things you might not want to talk about at all, not with anyone, and I just forced you to anyway.” It was as if he understood, and that was enough for Baekhyun to actually want to open up more.

He squeezed the hand in his and swallowed once before he wet his lips with his tongue and took a deep breath, “I mean, you’re right. Minjae is a touchy subject, he’s the reason for my fall, and I can’t exactly say that’s a pleasant memory for me, but at the same time he was a very happy part of my life and maybe I should start appreciating that more.”

Chanyeol stayed quiet, realising that if he said anything now he might just make Baekhyun shut up again, so he waited patiently for his boyfriend to tell him more. “I never loved him, but I was supposed to. We were best friends, though, which I think isn’t any less intense than being in love. I care for Minseok a lot too, maybe just as much as I care for you, but then in a slightly different way of course. Minjae, he was my life, literally. He was my job, it was my one task to watch him, and that’s what I failed at.”

Chanyeol hummed then, the sound meant to encourage Baekhyun to go on from there rather than leave him in the dark again, but Baekhyun needed a moment to get there. He averted his eyes, staring at the world outside, which was still turning as if they weren’t having a minor relationship crisis inside Baekhyun’s apartment. It was almost funny.

“Minjae died shortly after he got married,” Baekhyun spoke out loud, realising this was pretty much the first person he told the whole story to. Both Lucifer and Tae-ho knew the facts, they had needed to for his case, but those had been less detailed than what he was telling Chanyeol, already.

“I had watched over him for a bit as he drove his car to work, and I felt like everything was okay which was why I zoned out slightly, but then a second later when I checked back in again, I found him unconscious in his seat, the car having crashed.”

Baekhyun swallowed dryly as speaking about the event brought him back to it. He could so vividly recall where Minjae’s skull had hit the window, and he remembered thinking how beautiful he had looked even while he was dying, and then seconds later how panic had struck him.

“He was bleeding so badly, because the airbag wasn’t activated and so his head hit the window, and his skull just-“ Baekhyun paused his story as he couldn’t continue down that road, and it helped to feel that his hand was being squeezed.

When he closed his eyes he could see himself fussing over the man he had cared about so much, saw himself unbuckling his seatbelt and tilting the chair back to get more space to work. He remembered his shaking hands as he tried to channel his powers, remembered crying so much as nothing appeared to be helping. It hadn’t been enough, he hadn’t had enough love to fix that much damage.

“I tried so hard to save him, but because I hadn’t fallen in love, I was pretty much powerless in a situation this severe. I even called upon other angels, used his phone to dial the emergency services. I tried to copy those people from movies by pushing on his chest, trying to get him to breathe again, but I could feel him slowly slip away from me,” Baekhyun’s voice was laced with sadness and he sounded choked up, tears in his eyes making his throat close up.

“It’s a strange feeling, to feel someone take their last breath. When you’re tied to them, you feel it, and it is one of the saddest things you can go through. It’s supposed to be relieving, if you’ve guided them through life and their time has come, then it’s a good goodbye. For me, though, for me it was the end of the world,” Baekhyun laughed joylessly, “I actually felt like I had failed, like I should have done more, that me not loving him the way I should have was what had caused it.”

“I didn’t really have time to say goodbye,” Baekhyun’s voice was barely a whisper by now, the words too hard to speak, but they just kept pouring out without him even thinking about them, “before I knew it they had pulled me away from his body and were throwing me out of heaven. I didn’t have any time to defend myself, to explain to them and have them hear me out. That was just it: end of.”

“It wasn’t until I was in hell that I started thinking of how out of the blue Minjae’s death had come. That it couldn’t have been my fault, because if that were true the signs would have pointed me there. But by then I knew it was too late to fight for my innocence. Or, so I thought.”

Chanyeol’s nose was pressed to his thigh now, and Baekhyun could feel the way he was leaving kisses through the denim of his jeans, something which warmed Baekhyun’s heart.

“Did Tae-ho tell you why he was here in the first place?” He asked his boyfriend, his free hand finding the strength to lift itself and drop down again on top of Chanyeol’s head. With his fingers curled in the curls he felt Chanyeol shake his head, letting him know that he didn’t.

“Well,” Baekhyun said, “it’s because he found out Minjae had a son. His wife was pregnant when he died. I know it’s all a long story, but if he really is Minjae’s son then he could prove my innocence and get me my grace back. That’s why Tae-ho is here.”

This bit of information made Chanyeol freeze, his lips pausing where they had previously peppered him with kisses. Baekhyun could feel it as the man’s lips stopped, his head lifting slightly, and Baekhyun untangled his fingers so that he could look at Chanyeol as he sat back.

The frown was back, making his eyebrows look like they had grown together, and his boyfriend’s lips were a thin line. As their eyes met he could see how stern his gaze was, and that made Baekhyuns heart stop for a short second. “What?” he asked, his voice small as he tried to think of what he had done wrong.

Had he said something wrong? Should he not have mentioned Tae-ho again? Was that still a sore subject between them?

Chanyeol climbed up, making Baekhyun freak out with worry that his boyfriend would leave him now he was done with his story, but he surprised him then by settling in the left over space in the windowsill, staring straight at Baekhyun as he leaned over.

Their faces were only inches apart, and if it weren’t for the seriousness of the situation, Baekhyun was sure he would have ended up getting kissed within the next few seconds. However, this wasn’t the time to be cute, clearly, and so he didn’t lean in closer.

“If he is Minjae’s son, so, if you can prove your innocence,” Chanyeol spoke slowly, making sure the question he was asking was clear to Baekhyun, “what exactly does that mean? What could that lead to?” Nothing about it was asked in a joking matter and none of it made Baekhyun want to joke, because he finally understood what Chanyeol was asking.

“Oh,” he replied, blinking rapidly as the revelation settled and he wanted to look away, but Chanyeol wouldn’t let him. He took Baekhyun’s chin between his fingers, forced his eyes back on him, and Baekhyun swallowed hard as he let himself be watched again, “I don’t know. If they will listen to me, there could be two outcomes.”

He knew he couldn’t beat around the bush with this, that he couldn’t keep Chanyeol waiting forever, and so he explained them before his boyfriend could ask him again, “the first could be that they shrug their shoulders and ignore it, or,” and he knew this was what Chanyeol was hinting at, because the hold on his chin tightened, “or they let me back into heaven.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a long one this, and a lot of shit happens, I know. Hope it's not too much to take in, though <3 Anyway, how will Chanyeol react?  
> idk what to say anymore, I feel kinda stupid so bYE


	25. Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m happier now than I’ve ever been in my entire life, and even though we don’t know everything about each other yet and we might end up on completely different paths than we expect to end up on, I will not go back to heaven. I promise you I’ll stay here with you, if you promise to stay here with me too.”

 

The fingers that had been holding on to his chin so tightly before, now let go within a heartbeat, and Chanyeol defeatedly dropped his head in his hands straight after. He looked like he had given up in a matter of seconds, like Baekhyun’s answer had broken something and now Chanyeol was done with it. He was so done he couldn’t even look at Baekhyun anymore, but the words still came.

“God, what is the fucking point?” he lamented while he shook his head, face still covered by his hands, and Baekhyun was left to question what was going on when Chanyeol started laughing almost madly. It was a little scary, the way his shoulders were shaking and his laughter sounded funny, as it was muffled against his hands. For a second Baekhyun wondered if it was laughter at all or if maybe Chanyeol was actually crying.

He didn’t get a chance to ask what was happening, didn’t even get time to clear his own thoughts before his boyfriend threw out the thoughts on his mind, effectively making Baekhyun’s heart drop a good foot inside his chest.

“Why are we even trying, Baekhyun?” the question sounded a lot clearer as Chanyeol raised his head to voice it. His eyes were shiny, glaced over without actual tears spilling, and he looked like he had surrendered to whatever demons he had tried to fight for so long now. His shoulders dropped, his expression one of desperation, “what’s the point of this, Baek? We can’t work out, we’re never going to. You’ll leave me the second they see your innocence.”

Baekhyun felt his heart break as he heard Chanyeol talk, and it was one of those moments where he felt a million things all at once. The pain was evident, but there was a touch of love to it too, knowing that Chanyeol cared enough to act this way. Most of all, though, it was scary.

He realised, as he let his thoughts roam freely, that most of all he wasn’t hurt because his boyfriend appeared to be having such little faith in their surviving. Instead he was hurt because he hated how Chanyeol actually believed that he cared so little that he would be able to give up on him that easily.

Didn’t he know how Baekhyun had gone through so much denial, he had gone through insecurity and fear, but that he was now at a point where he knew what he wanted and knew he could have what his heart desired too? He wasn’t going to give that up for the world, did Chanyeol really not understand that?

“Can you fucking stop that?” Baekhyun brought out, almost whining but his voice sounded stupid with all his emotions bottled up so high in his chest. He couldn’t deal with them, felt them pouring out one by one even though he tried to put a lid on it, “I’m not going to leave you. I’ll tell heaven to go fuck itself, they fucked me over and I don’t want to go back to them.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Chanyeol answered him instantly, sounding both like he didn’t believe any of Baekhyun’s bullshit or like he was desperately trying not to get his hopes up, “it’s your home. It’s heaven, it’s where you belong, how could you turn them down?”

The question made Baekhyun laugh so hard he actually ended up crying, losing it in a fit of snickering, because truly, if there was one place that had never really felt like home at, it was in heaven. Sure, maybe with his past experiences in hell and as a mortal he would know how to be a better angel now, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to get back to that life.

“Don’t be stupid? You don’t be stupid! Heaven isn’t my home, you moron. In fact, you feel more like a home than heaven ever did and I’ve been with you for less than two months,” Baekhyun laughed, poking at Chanyeol’s chest as he spoke and making him look like he was being absolutely ridiculous bringing up this point at all.

In fact, Baekhyun was now pretty sure they were both big idiots, making this whole entire situation a thousand time worse because their idiot selves were sitting in front of each other, having gone through an emotional roller coaster over the span of half an hour. From not talking, to fighting and now eventually to crying with laughter. They were both to blame for this, and that made them both huge idiots.

Baekhyun watched Chanyeol’s eyes fill up with tears as he swatted at Baekhyun’s hand, like he felt too embarrassed about it all, but he held on to his boyfriend’s when he finally hit it. Then, as if this whole ordeal had tired him endlessly, he sort of fell against Baekhyun’s body.

His forehead hit Baekhyun’s shoulder, very much like the very first night they had sat down to talk to each other, the night where Baekhyun told Chanyeol the truth about him and how Jaehyun was dead. Back then, Chanyeol had fallen against him to cry as well, just like he was doing now, and Baekhyun wondered if the taller found it hard to show the emotions his face put on display.

As he contemplated this, sitting still with Chanyeol leaning over a little awkwardly, he heard his boyfriend’s voice again. It cracked as he begged, as he pleaded for Baekhyun to reduce his worries to nothing, “promise me then. Promise me you’ll stay.”

It went quiet once the demand was made, and Baekhyun could feel how Chanyeol stayed still, as if he was holding his breath in an attempt to feel for the fallen one’s response. Baekhyun was aware of how his next move would say more than any words he’d use, and so he took a moment to carefully calculate it.

The plea had sounded so dejected, as if Chanyeol was afraid Baekhyun wouldn’t make the promise. He managed to sound as if this was the end of them, as if they were breaking up, and as Baekhyun thought of that his mind screamed out a loud and clear, ‘ _no’_.

Baekhyun moved then, even though he couldn’t see through his own tears. He shuffled closer, until his knees were touching Chanyeol’s and he was able to wrap his arms around his boyfriend as tightly as he could. Then, in an attempt to get the both of them to calm down, he rocked their bodies back and forth slowly, surely. He dropped a kiss to Chanyeol head as he hushed him and waited for his boyfriend to relax some before he made his promise.

“I can’t promise you much, but I can promise you this, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun told the man in his arms, “I’m happier now than I’ve ever been in my entire life, and even though we don’t know everything about each other yet and we might end up on completely different paths than we expect to end up on, I will not go back to heaven. I promise you I’ll stay here with you, if you promise to stay here with me too.”

He needed to hear the same words back, needed to make sure that he wasn’t making a promise this big only to get nothing in return. He needed to hear that he wouldn’t end up alone despite it all, that Chanyeol was convinced their relationship would work once again, even after their first fight, and when he got that confirmation he felt nothing but relief in his chest, every other heavy thought forgotten.

“I promise.”

 ~

With one crisis averted, Baekhyun could relax a little more about having Tae-ho around.

Chanyeol hadn’t apologised to the demon, but the fact that he wasn’t screaming at him any more was enough of a peace offering and the both of them realised it. Tae-ho, however, looked like he didn’t quite enjoy the fact that he couldn’t piss Chanyeol off any longer. He had looked like he’d much rather have Baekhyun’s boyfriend hate him than not care about him whatsoever.

Although, Chanyeol’s indifference towards him wasn’t what had gotten Tae-ho as annoyed as he was though. He was clearly infuriated with both Chanyeol and Baekhyun, and that was entirely his own doing too. Because when Tae-ho had returned later that night thinking enough time had passed for the lovebirds to have had their fight, he had walked in on Baekhyun and Chanyeol having quite the intense make-up sex.

The loud, “fuck!” that had sounded in Baekhyun’s bedroom once Tae-ho had walked in had left Chanyeol looking a little more smug than he would have done without the demon’s exclamation of frustration. In turn, getting caught had left Baekhyun feeling thoroughly fucked, because the look of horror that had been on Tae-ho’s face had fuelled Chanyeol’s cockiness and had made him that bit rougher, leaving imprints of his fingers on Baekhyun’s thighs.

Baekhyun had to admit that Tae-ho’s face had indeed been hilarious, even though he felt a little bad about hurting him like that. However, it hadn’t been enough to beat feeling of Chanyeol’s hands on his hips that guided him.

It was clear that to Chanyeol, the demon that had bitched at him before had lost most of his previous charm now that he had seen Baekhyun’s ex-lover’s face while having Baekhyun on top of him, moaning his name instead of Tae-ho’s. It was like he felt proud of how Baekhyun was his.

Honestly, Baekhyun knew it would come around to bite him in the ass one day, the confidence his boyfriend had gained over this, but for now it was nice. It was nice to see how Chanyeol clearly felt self-satisfied, that he felt content with their relationship again, and that was better than the Chanyeol with tears in his eyes that he had seen not too long ago.

But love didn’t just hurt, it healed as well, and after their fight and their promise they had wiped each other’s left-over tears and made up by wrapping their arms around the other a little tighter. And suure, they had argued some more on their way to the bedroom while getting rid of pieces of clothing by tearing at them carelessly, but that hadn’t been as serious as it had been before.

Their promise to each other had made it easier to let go of their bottled up thoughts and emotions, pouring them out through kisses and touches, both rough and soft. Hands had wandered thoughtlessly, kisses had turned more urgent, and well, that was when Tae-ho had barged in.

It had been the weirdest sex of Baekhyun’s life, and not even because of the whole Tae-ho fiasco either. He felt that way mostly because their moods had shifted every so often, along with each other. One second Chanyeol had been snapping his hips and squeezing Baekhyun’s skin almost painfully so, only for his head to drop to Baekhyun’s shoulder a second later, those hips stuttering as he went agonizingly slow. Sadness and anger had mingled, always being overpowered by the memory of their promise to stay together.

Later, Baekhyun kissed Chanyeol goodbye at the door before he waved him off, no shame in how much of a lovesick teenager he looked like in front of the guy who had always seen him as a badass demon in hell. Really, if he would have his own Chanyeol then Tae-ho would surely understand what it was like, but that was a very unlikely thing to happen.

He had barely closed the door again when he heard a scoff behind him, and when he turned around he saw Tae-ho leaning against his kitchenette, arms crossed and hip cocked. If they needed a picture in the dictionary to describe the word ‘jealousy,’ all they needed was to snap a shot right now. It was hilarious in a way, but also made Baekhyun feel slightly guilty for tearing open old wounds.

Back in hell this had been a weekly thing, getting caught with his latest conquest on his way up the ladder to the top, and every time Tae-ho had tried so hard to hide his disappointment and the want to fucking smash the skull of the person Baekhyun had ended up with that night. Now wasn’t any different, in fact it was probably worse because Chanyeol was someone Baekhyun actually cared about.

“At least some things haven’t changed,” Baekhyun mumbled softly as he walked up to Tae-ho, stopping besides him to get out his favourite mug and fill his kettle with water. He expected to receive some witty reply to his comment, but that didn’t happen. Tae-ho stayed where he was, blocking Baekhyun’s way as he tried to make his tea, but the fallen one didn’t let it get to him.

“I didn’t think he would forgive you that easily,” his friend finally admitted when Baekhyun walked away with his finished cup of tea, realising that he wouldn’t be the one to speak up first again. As Baekhyun sat down in his windowsill, he didn’t pay any attention to the words spoken, which soon enough resulted in Tae-ho’s desperate attempt at trying to infuriate him once more.

“Really,” the guy said a little resentfully, reminding Baekhyun more and more of a whiny little kid, “he looks so innocent and pure that I thought he wouldn’t want anything to do with someone like you.” The words probably weren’t spoken with any malice in them, knowing Tae-ho, but they were mocking anyway and as Baekhyun sat there and listened, he realised one thing: he had outgrown Tae-ho.

Whereas at first he had liked joking around with the younger one and had enjoyed their childishness more than anything, now he felt like there was so much space between the two of them. As if becoming mortal had transported him to another damn universe, one where he no longer understood the appeal of living the type of life Tae-ho was still stuck in.

Baekhyun had grown, he had progressed and matured, and it almost made him laugh to think of the type of person he could have still been if he hadn’t gotten the chance of taking Jaehyun’s body. He’d still be that reckless, uncaring boy with dreams too wild to comprehend. Now, he had goals and was living a responsible life. When would Tae-ho ever be the same?

“You do realise that you just insulted me, right?” Baekhyun spoke calmly, eyes on the world outside his window rather than the guy he once used to be so close to, but now felt lightyears apart from, “that’s not exactly helping your case, you know. You should be happy I haven’t thrown you out for good already.”

“You can’t,” Tae-ho sounded like he was confident enough to state he knew just what was up, that he had this tiny bit of power still over Baekhyun, “you need me if you want to get to Minsu, if you want to prove your innocence. You know you need me.”

Which was entirely the wrong thing for the demon to say, because it made anger flare in Baekhyun’s chest to the point where his sneer was so dark and powerful that Tae-ho was left unable to say anything, “listen to me you little shit, I don’t need your sorry ass for anything, okay?”

But that was only the start of Baekhyun’s rant, “I could find Minsu on my own and fix shit on my own. I sure as hell don’t need your help, but even if I would need it, I’d rather give it all up than have you act this fucking disrespectful. So, I suggest you change your goddamn attitude before I kick your ass back to hell where you belong and make sure, if I do, that it will be the last time you will ever see me.”

There were possibly more swearwords in those few sentences than Baekhyun had used in the past year combined, and he would be a little scared of himself if this had been anyone else but Tae-ho he was saying them to.

The demon in question sat down abruptly, his hands in his lap, and he swallowed hard as he stared back at Baekhyun, who now had his eyes on him. Those words had been all it took for him to be put back into his place, for him to remember that Baekhyun was someone not to be fucked with, and it was funny because he was pretty sure that he had nothing over Tae-ho.

He was pretty much powerless now that he was a mortal, he only had his words and their memories of their past, but it was enough for Tae-ho to respect him again.

There came no apology, but it wasn’t like Baekhyun had expected one. He knew there was too much pride in Tae-ho’s posture to ever admit to such a thing, but it was very clear that he knew he had taken it all a step too far. He allowed Baekhyun to push him back, accepted the belittling words in the hope it would be enough of an apology on its own.

Baekhyun, who was still pointlessly waiting for any words in return, sighed as he looked at Tae-ho’s surrender. The demon sat, his head bent diligently, and after Baekhyun rolled his eyes at him he huffed an annoying sounding, “stop that. Just- get your shit together, okay? Stop acting like you’re the king of hell and find that bit of humanity in you that got us to be friends in the first place.”

Tae-ho appeared to want to argue with him, but Baekhyun raised his hand to stop him from speaking up, “don’t act like you didn’t do this out of jealousy. Did you forget we spent over twenty years in hell together? I know you pretty well. I also know it’s a weakness, not being able to let go of someone when you should. If you ever want to reach a higher rank than you have now, you will have to be hard-hearted, indifferent and isolated. You have to make sure no one has the power to hurt you, to find your weakness. Right now, as well as back then, that seemed to be me.”

Baekhyun’s words made Tae-ho’s jaw set, his eyes hardening as they watched each other, and he showed the fallen one a bit of the person he had just described. Indifference filled his eyes, along with the burning passion to prove Baekhyun wrong.

“You don’t know shit about my weaknesses,” he replied coldly, “you’ve made your point and you were right, but you’re taking it too far now. I suggest you stop accusing me of things you know nothing about before I leave your ass and go back to hell without helping you whatsoever.”

There was a bite to his words, a tone that he had never used with Baekhyun, and it felt genuine. Baekhyun was actually impressed by it, wondered if maybe he had been wrong after all. Maybe the kid-like behaviour he had seen was a part of the Tae-ho only Baekhyun got to see, a part reserved for close friends. Maybe back in hell, this was the Tae-ho that ruled, and if that was it then he would surely make it.

They stared at each other, both of them shooting daggers with their eyes, and then the tension somehow broke. Neither of them was able to hold it any longer, and laughter suddenly filled the room, bouncing off the walls as their seriousness broke into a grin.

Tae-ho doubled over, slapping a hand on his knee, and that was that. Baekhyun had been able to clear the air with both his boyfriend and his ex-best friend, and he thanked whatever had made him be this lucky. He just hoped that it wasn’t a sign that his luck would run out soon.

~

**[Chanyeol]:**

Did that fucker say anything about us after I left?

Like how handsome we look together and how good I must be to get you to moan like that?

**[Baekhyun]:**

Chanyeol…

My god, are you fishing for compliments?

**[Chanyeol]:**

No, I just want to make sure he knows his place

And maybe just a little???

But really, was I the only one who thought that was fucking hot?

**[Baekhyun]:**

What, the sex or getting caught?

**[Chanyeol]:**

Both.

Anyway, has he? Said anything I mean?

**[Baekhyun]:**

Sorry ;-)

Looks like he wasn’t impressed. Maybe we should do better next time.

**[Chanyeol]:**

Next time, huh? So you’re not ditching me for him?

**[Baekhyun]:**

Alright, that’s it.

I’m no longer talking to either of you.

You’re both goddamn idiots

**[Chanyeol]:**

I was kidding!!!

Baek, I really was

Don’t go and ignore me now

Please

Come on, I was only kidding. I know you won’t ditch me, we promised.

I don’t break promises.

**[Baekhyun]:**

That’s more like it.

I swear though, if you don’t get over Tae-ho’s childish behaviour, you’re just as much a child

I don’t like children

**[Chanyeol]:**

Still you’re coming to my work on Thursday, to help me with my children

Or, so we planned... Am I wrong to think that is still on?

**[Baekhyun]:**

No. You’re not wrong, Yeol.

I practiced that damn song, you know that. To hell if I’ll let that have been for nothing

**[Chanyeol]:**

Great!!

I’m really looking forward to them meeting you.

I just know they’ll love you as much as I do

**[Chanyeol]:**

Wait

Shit, did I just…

Hold up

 

Baekhyun’s phone rang only seconds later, after he had only just read the last few incoming texts on his screen. He didn’t get what was happening, what was up with Chanyeol to suddenly shift from texting to calling. His words didn’t really make sense either, not until Baekhyun picked up and his boyfriend’s voice came through the phone loud and clear, cutting through Baekhyun’s greeting of, “Chanye-“ with, “that was _not_ a confession, alright?!”

He all but yelled, making Baekhyun go deaf in one ear for a few seconds. Quickly moving the phone to his other ear without missing a word his boyfriend was speaking, because he was practically still shouting them, Baekhyun frowned at what he was hearing.

This time it was his own brain slow on the uptake, but he really didn’t see what Chanyeol could be going on about. “I refuse to let that stupid text be the first time I tell you… well, that. You have to forget it, okay? I never said it,” Chanyeol rambled, sounding almost upset.

It was only then that Baekhyun understood what he was talking about. He was referring to the ‘they’ll love you as much as I do’.

“Oh,” Baekhyun replied quietly, eyes wide as he brought up his knees to his chest. Slowly, a smile started to spread as he thought of how, despite the slip up, Chanyeol wasn’t taking it back. It wasn’t that he didn’t mean them, but more like he wanted to make it special. He simply wanted to find a better moment to say them. That stupid romantic goof.

Pressing his smile to his leg, Baekhyun closed his eyes and listened to Chanyeol’s heavy breathing on the other end of the line as he waited for Baekhyun to say something. “Don’t worry,” he assured his boyfriend then, but he was unable to keep the smile from his voice, “it’s not even a straight forward confession. It was only a slip up, it is okay.”

Really, it was nothing but a slip up, even though Baekhyun was already giddy thinking about how Chanyeol would tell him in the future now.

“Good,” Chanyeol sounded a little more relieved, “I didn’t mean for it to sound like that. Like, that would be such a lame way to first say it. I can’t believe that actually happened.” His boyfriend laughed in relief, making Baekhyun’s smile grow impossibly wider, and even though his comment was followed by silence, it wasn’t uncomfortable.

Baekhyun wanted to say it now. It actually felt so right, with the way he was feeling right now, to spill his own ‘I love you’, but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t, because Chanyeol was a romantic and he deserved more. He deserved his own chance at a confession, which would be the place where Baekhyun would return the ‘I love you’ without a doubt in his heart. For now he just settled on something simpler, “I miss you.”

He heard a bright chuckle on the other side, which made Baekhyun press his face against his leg a little more, as if making himself smaller would make it easier to contain the way his heart was beating against his ribcage. “Already?” Chanyeol asked, “I was there only an hour ago.”

Baekhyun hummed, the sound soft but still loud enough for the phone to pick up, “I know, but I think I’ve already gotten used to falling asleep in your arms with your nose pressed to my neck, and waking up to your ugly drooling face as your Iron Man shirt leaves your stomach so exposed that I can’t help but want to kiss it. How stupid, right?”

“Totally,” Chanyeol replied, sounding sarcastic but with the hint of a smile lacing the word, “because I really don’t miss the way you press your cold feet to my legs and how you keep making these tiny whiny sounds in your sleep as you push yourself back against my body. It’s total torture.”

God, Baekhyun’s heart kept skipping beats, kept jumping around along with the butterflies in his stomach. Why did falling for someone feel this good? Why couldn’t he have had this before? Why was he lucky enough to have Chanyeol? Why was he even luckier to find Chanyeol’s feelings were mutual? Knowing it could be taken away any second, _that_ was torture.

He got now, why some angels wept and wept, for days on end, when their humans died. He got why angels called themselves blessed to love for multiple lifetimes, because they got to experience this feeling of falling more than once in their life.

And Chanyeol had too. Chanyeol had fallen for Jaehyun once, before Baekhyun, and Baekhyun wondered if it was anything like back then for his boyfriend. He wondered if it was just as special as falling in love for the first time, whether it was any different at all falling in love a second time, but he couldn’t ask Chanyeol this. Especially not because the answer could end up being a hurtful one.

“Hmm,” Baekhyun hummed this time, feeling sleepy as he sat there with his eyes closed, his free arm still wrapped around his legs. He felt warm and content, calm and serene, and he swore he could fall asleep like that, just listening to Chanyeol speak. Or be quiet together, that too. Sometimes they did that too.

Baekhyun could hear Tae-ho move around in his kitchen and he was pretty sure Chanyeol could hear him too, but neither of them commented on it. Thankfull, the demon left them alone as well. Baekhyun was sure later on he’d receive a ton of jokes about how boring his boyfriend must be because they ended up not talking about anything, but for now he got to enjoy the silence. To Baekhyun though, this was perfect.

“Don’t go to bed too late,” Chanyeol said eventually, “it’s already past midnight and it’s not like we had a calm and quiet night in.” He sounded tired too, and Baekhyun bet he was, because he himself had always felt three times as tired after crying. And crying wasn’t the only tiring thing that they had done that night.

“I will get up, will walk to my bed and will fall down on it before I hang up on you, okay? Then you’re sure I went to bed early,” Baekhyun told his boyfriend while getting up. He shuffled past a huffing Tae-ho, who was still taking up the couch, but the fallen one only flipped him off before he walked on to his bedroom. “The same goes for you, though,” he added a little belatedly, making Chanyeol laugh on the other end of the line.

“Yeah, yeah, of course. I don’t have work tomorrow, though,” he told Baekhyun just as the boy crawled underneath the sheets. He curled up, closing his eyes again, and kind of wished Chanyeol could be there to hold him, because it was cold. It was cold and his sheets were cold and he was shivering and he just wanted Chanyeol there with him.

“That’s very much true. Alright, I’m in bed now,” Baekhyun quiered, trembling as he tried to rub his legs together to create some warmth, “I’m pretty sure I’m wide awake again now, though, because it kind of feels like I’m taking an ice bath, but I’m tucked in.”

“You’ll get warm soon enough,” Chanyeol assured him, “I’ll send you some of my warmth your way, okay? Goodnight, Baekhyun.” He kind of did, making Baekhyun’s cheeks heat up again with embarrassment and adoration. It wasn’t the same as having arms curled around him, but it was at least something. A weak replacement, a cheap substitute, but it worked to some extent.

The fallen one hummed in reply to the words, letting his smile spread again before he returned with a soft voice, “goodnight, Chanyeol.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you just need a little bit of fluff, right? Anyway, I've almost finished my 5th verse for 'Do it.', which is basically one big cotton candy verse. If you've read the other verses, know the 5th is coming! If not, you could always check it out ^^
> 
> Also, coming in: a big needed dose of truth


	26. Potato Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hello everyone, my name is Baekhyun. I’m the angel Chanyeol ssaem has told you about, and I’m really nervous right now. Please take care of me today,” he uttered before he bowed, glad for the moment where he could look down and let go of the tension in his body some.

~

 

A few days passed in which Chanyeol pretty much acted the same as he would have usually done around Baekhyun. He laughed, joked around and would be the first to lean in and kiss his lover like they had never had a pretty intense fight only days before. At first sight nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but that wasn’t exactly true.

Baekhyun had noticed how sometimes Chanyeol would go quiet. Both in his texting and during their conversations when they’d meet up. For example, they had sat together on Chanyeol’s couch, hands entwined between them and Baekhyun had watched his boyfriend’s smile fade away and his eyes follow Toben, lost in thought.

Also, when he had gone over for coffee and some cuddling, needing some space from Tae-ho, Chanyeol had been hesitant in his touching, which to Baekhyun was strange because they had slept together right after their fight, when Tae-ho had walked into them in bed. That night they hadn’t even been doing anything remotely as inappropriate and Tae-ho was far away, yet it had been more uncomfortable than back then.

To summarize: there was an awkwardness between them that hadn’t been there before, and Baekhyun truly hoped it was because his ex-lover was still around in Baekhyun’s apartment, not because Chanyeol knew part of the truth now.

If it wasn’t Tae-ho, then the question of whether the strange tension between them would ever fade, would be much harder to answer too, and if there was one thing he didn’t want to think about it was the implication of that. Baekhyun was sure that it would be the end of them eventually, if this were to last, because who liked being in a relationship that felt uncomfortable half of the time? No one.

So, Baekhyun had good hopes of getting rid of this uneasy tension by spending as much time with Chanyeol as possible, whether on the phone, via text or in person. If he was busy with paying attention to his boyfriend, it meant he couldn’t possibly be busy with Tae-ho.

In a way it was a win-win, because on the one hand Chanyeol got to see how much effort he was putting into not being with the demon, while at the same time said demon got to see just how over him Baekhyun really was now that he was with Chanyeol.

He felt almost a little cruel, giving the guy that had been his friend for over a decade the cold shoulder, but he knew his priorities and in this life, Tae-ho just wasn’t one of those. It was only hard because he remembered their past but was acting on what he saw as his future, and those two things clashed. A lot.

To Baekhyun, with his mind set on showing Chanyeol how devoted he was, the visit to his boyfriend’s work came exactly at the right time. It would take a few hours of his day, after which he’d go straight to work, but it would be worth it, because in those hours he’d get to be around the person he enjoyed spending his time with the most. Really, he was damn lucky.

He knew though, that his usual ways of flirting and assuring Chanyeol of his feelings wouldn’t exactly be appropriate in a class of kindergarten kids, but he also knew he would find other ways to fix the broken bond between them, somehow. His smile was a pretty strong weapon, and maybe he could use the kids in Chanyeol’s class to his advantage too.

On the day of the project, Baekhyun met his boyfriend at his school, during their lunch break, and after a weird hug that felt too much like a friendly pat and that lasted way too short, Chanyeol took him inside. He introduced Baekhyun to his co-workers, telling them, “this is my boyfriend, Baekhyun,” as if the stupid less-than-personal hug hadn’t just happened outside of this room.

In all honesty, Baekhyun had thought that Chanyeol had wanted to come across as straight, and that was why he had hugged Baekhyun as if they had been nothing but friends, but this kind of contradicted that. It was confusing him to no end, but he shook it off in favour of sending the people in the room a smile as they said their hellos.

Soon after that, once he had put away his lunchbox, Chanyeol took him away from his colleagues and dragged him to his classroom. The kids were still out, wouldn’t start dripping in for another ten minutes as Chanyeol had explained, and Baekhyun took it upon himself to use their bit of privacy to press his boyfriend against the door of the classroom once it closed, and kiss him.

The kiss was returned, although Chanyeol sure kept it short, and when he felt him pull away, Baekhyun breathed out a soft, “hey.” His hands were on Chanyeol’s chest as he tiptoed up to reach him and they stayed there when he rocked back on his heels again. His boyfriend let his hands find Baekhyun’s hips to hold on to, and he even smiled some as he looked down at him. It was a nice change.

“Hey,” he returned, lifting one hand to brush some of Baekhyun’s hair out of his face. “Did you wear white because of the ‘angel’ thing?” He asked then with a chuckle, staring him down and taking in his appearance for the first time since he had arrived.

Baekhyun was indeed wearing white, his shirt a simple white cotton blouse with rolled up sleeves, which made him feel slightly chilly but it would be worth it, hopefully. A blush rose to his cheek when Chanyeol called him out on it, though, and he stuttered a little as he tried to explain himself, “I- well you told them I was an angel, right? I thought I best look the part, even though I decided buying fake wings was a bit too much. Do you think it’s stupid?”

The question, which he asked in an unsure tone, got Chanyeol to click his tongue against the roof of his mouth before his hand wrapped further around Baekhyun’s hip, to his lower back, so he could pull him in closer and kiss him again. It was nice, mostly because Baekhyun wasn’t the one initiating it this time, and so he shut his eyes and wished for the moment to linger.

It didn’t, not for as long as he would have wanted it to anyway, and Baekhyun sighed as Chanyeol’s hold on him loosened before it eventually disappeared. His boyfriend let go of him in favour of walking to his desk, which stood in the middle of the room, and he motioned for Baekhyun to follow him, “no, I don’t. You look very innocent and pure.”

Baekhyun wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean, whether it was a good thing or not, but either way he couldn’t change it now, so he decided not to respond to it and leave space for the subject to change. Instead of saying anything at all, he walked up to the desk as he watched Chanyeol fix the piles of paper he had there, one of which he recognised as the lyrics to the song they’d be singing today.

Along to the lyrics there were drawings, a poem and a pile of blank pages with a box of potatoes next to it. The last items were confusing to Baekhyun – why would anyone keep potatoes in a classroom? - and so he took a hold of one of the vegetables and lifted it up to his face, as if trying to find the answer written on its skin.

He heard Chanyeol chuckle at him, and his boyfriend followed his example, picking up a potato and holding it up in the air. “Stamps,” he clarified then, “we’re making stamps. Or, you and I will be making stamps.” He smiled, putting the potato back down with the others, “the kids will draw their design and we will try to turn it into a stamp by carving the potato with a small knife.”

“A knife?” Baekhyun asked, his voice almost breaking on the question, and he cleared his throat as he watched Chanyeol nod. His boyfriend looked serious enough, which was something Baekhyun couldn’t quite understand. “Really? Did you forget what happened the last time I was around knives?” he continued, waiting for it to make sense in Chanyeol’s brain.

His boyfriend however, only shrugged at his comment, smiling at him patiently, “I was kind of hoping that really was just an accident. Don’t tell me you can’t work with a small peeler knife.” He was so sure of Baekhyun’s skills that he couldn’t do much else than sigh and let it be. Arguing would be pointless, because soon enough the first kids could be returning from their lunch break playtime and his words would be cut off.

“Fine,” he ended up grumbling quietly while he walked over to a chair nearby, which had clearly been put there for him. The other chairs were those of the kids, and Baekhyun couldn’t fit himself on those no matter how short he was. It was cute, though, to see Chanyeol’s classroom and what he was like as a teacher.

Somehow it really suited him, standing at a desk with his ruffled hair and glasses on his nose, staring intently at the work on his desk. The room suited his personality as well, with drawings and art everywhere and a guitar and piano in the corner, right next to a huge bookcase full of children’s books and books about nature. Baekhyun could see his Christmas present presented on the middle shelf, next to an arrow that said ‘book of the week’.

What was most beautiful about it all, was the way Chanyeol’s face lit up when the door opened and the first two kids came running in. It shocked Baekhyun to see how they politely greeted their teacher, sounding like two adorable little chipmunks with how high their voices were, before they bounced off to the books straight after, the both of them going for a book filled with prints of animals.

Slowly but surely, over the next five minutes, the classroom started filling up. All kids skipped inside and went to greet their teacher, one by one, before they would be off looking for their friends. And that smile, that gorgeous smile, would grace Chanyeol’s face each and every time.

It was such a bright smile, one filled with utter happiness, and Baekhyun felt a little jealous to know these kids got to see it every day, yet they probably didn’t know just how special it was. To Baekhyun it was the most beautiful thing to have in his life, and to see Chanyeol give that grin to them so easily, it clearly showed how the group of children meant a lot to him.

Chanyeol soon stopped fixing his papers and walked around to talk to the small groups that had formed. Baekhyun couldn’t hear what they were saying, but at the end of the talk the kids would always high five Chanyeol and run off to their tables. It looked as if all of this was a routine, something they did every day, and that was quite impressive to achieve with kids this age.

In the meantime, some of the kids had lost interest in their books or their toys and had taken an interest in Baekhyun instead. He saw more than one pair of curious eyes travel in his direction, and he sent back soft smiles everytime he met someone’s gaze.

Some of the kids smiled back and waved, but most turned shy and would avert their eyes back with a slight blush on their face. It was adorable to watch, honestly. Baekhyun loved kids, even if he himself still felt like one and didn’t understand how Chanyeol managed to help raise them.

One kid was brave enough to dart up to him, with Chanyeol not having gotten to her group yet, and she tipped her head to the side as she looked up at Baekhyun, who felt way too big in his chair that way. He stared down at her, tried not to look to intimidating as he leaned down some to get to her level, but the girl seemed unfazed anyway.

“Who are you?” she asked Baekhyun pointedly, “we hardly get visitors in the classroom. Especially not after lunch break.” She truly looked like she couldn’t make sense of it, her tiny lips pouted in thought, and Baekhyun truly couldn’t help the way his eyebrows raised up high.

This little girl came across as so much older, so much wiser too, than some of the other kids he had seen in the room. Half of them were focused on nothing but playing, especially the boys, who had no eyes for anything else. Yet this girl had easily come up to him and asked him who he was, not afraid at all, and using words that Baekhyun thought were impossible to know at such an early age.

Before Baekhyun had found the words to say to her, having sat there probably looking like an idiot as he felt so speechless, a hand briefly touched the girl’s shoulder. It made her jump, eyes wide as she got startled, and she turned around instantly, wanting to run away as if she had done something she wasn’t allowed to.

Chanyeol held on to her shoulder, though, making sure she didn’t run, and he bent down to her level to face her, “Seul Gi, Baekhyun will introduce himself in a minute, okay? As soon as you sit down, because you are the only one still standing.”

The girl, Seul Gi, turned even more crimson as her teacher told her she was the only one left as the rest was waiting for class to start, and she took off like a bullet from a gun after she politely bowed and said a quick, “yes, Chanyeol ssaem.”

Baekhyun finally closed his mouth, which had still be slightly opened, and returned the smile Chanyeol sent him as he reached out to Baekhyun, holding out his hand. The fallen one took it and he let himself be pulled up from his seat without an issue, all while the kids watched them in silence.

“She’s a smart girl,” Baekhyun whispered to his boyfriend as he was dragged to the front of the room, and Chanyeol chuckled and hummed in agreement, “yeah. She’s one of the eldest and has got rich parents that make sure she’s ahead of all the other kids. It’s kind of sad in a way.”

Time to say something in return Baekhyun didn’t have, because only a second later they stopped, now at the front of the class near Chanyeol’s desk, and Baekhyun found himself being the target of about twenty pairs of curious eyes now instead of one.

It was then that the nerves struck him, because Baekhyun suddenly realised how important this moment was. These were young kids, kids that wouldn’t hide their dislike towards Baekhyun if that was what they felt like, and knowing Chanyeol cared about these kids… He figured that if none of them would like him, it could be a real issue.

He swallowed, taking in every child’s face for a moment before he balled his hands into fists at his sides and decided that being scared of the response of a kindergarten class should not be something to exist in his life. He plastered on his biggest smile, knowing the corners of his mouth were trembling, and he decided to be honest.

“Hello everyone, my name is Baekhyun. I’m the angel Chanyeol ssaem has told you about, and I’m really nervous right now. Please take care of me today,” he uttered before he bowed, glad for the moment where he could look down and let go of the tension in his body some.

His words sparked some giggling, he could hear it all around the classroom, and when he straightened himself he saw a few amused grins returned to him.

Next to him, Chanyeol was smiling too. He put his hand on Baekhyun’s shoulder and took over from there, probably realising how uncomfortable he was feeling right now. “Yes, do you all remember how I said I had met an angel and fell in love with it?” He asked the class, receiving some nods in return, and Baekhyun was kind of surprised to hear that he had just admitted to his kids that he was in love with a man.

“I told you he would be here one day soon, right? Well, that is today,” Chanyeol went on, easily demanding the attention from everyone in the room with the way he stood in front of his kids. Even Baekhyun was staring at him. “We’re going to make art and tell each other about it, and we’re going to sing.”

One hand shot up in the air, a hand which, quite unsurprisingly to Baekhyun, belonged to Seul Gi. When Chanyeol gave her permission to speak, she stood up from her chair and asked, “Chanyeol ssaem, will Baekhyun be singing with us?” She looked excited as she was blinking wildly as she waited for a reply.

Chanyeol turned his head to look at Baekhyun, silently urging his boyfriend on to answer the question himself, and Baekhyun cleared his throat as he felt himself get shy again. Thinking he was supposed to sing the song Chanyeol had written, in front of all these kids, it was a little nerve-wrecking, but he remembered his plan and what he wanted to achieve and so he pushed aside his fear and nodded, “yes. I will be singing with you.”

A rumble of cheers erupted, but it quickly died down again when Chanyeol clapped his hands together, a clear sign he wanted to move on. Seul Gi sat down again, obviously satisfied with the answer, and Baekhyun stepped aside to give his boyfriend the space he needed to get to his desk.

“Alright, so we’ll be starting with art now,” Chanyeol began explaining the plan for the afternoon, “this morning we learnt about the new year and traditions, and the next hour we will be creating our own tradition. We’re going to make a drawing of our dreams for the New Year.”

He held up the paper with a drawing of two dolls dressed up in traditional clothing. They were holding on to a big banner, almost as big as their bodies, which was empty and where the kids could write about their dreams for the New Year. It was adorable, Baekhyun kind of felt like drawing one himself, but he knew he’d be on stamp duty.

“Some of you might want that one toy you have always wished for, or maybe you would like to learn how to cycle or want to read a hundred books this year,” Chanyeol summed up, giving the kids some examples that all got them to think already. Baekhyun saw how a few kids zoned out, already lost in thought of what they could come up with, and Chanyeol proved to be a good teacher by waiting for them to tune back in before he went on.

“Baekhyun and I will be walking around sometimes, but we will also be at the desk to make potato stamps for you. So, if you can tell us your dreams, we will try to make a stamp for you that matches it, how does that sound?” Chanyeol asked, the enthusiasm in his voice making something as boring as potato stamps sound like the most interesting thing in the world.

The kids all brightened up when Chanyeol handed out the drawings as well as coloured pencils, and they immediately got to work the second they could lay a hand on one. It was endearing to watch the intensity with which they worked, the way some even had their tongues sticking out between their lips as they worked. It made Baekhyun want to be a child again too. To go back to that time before he had come to an age where he had started taking care of Minjae.

Both Baekhyun and Chanyeol got to work shortly after, cutting potatoes in half and walking around to ask the kids what they wanted before they’d return to the desk to try and carve that out of the vegetable. Luckily for Baekhyun, the kids were too young to come up with any complicated things, and he managed to make a few great stamps as well as some less appealing ones, but that was alright.

As he sat back, most kids having received their stamps, and Chanyeol walked around helping out with some kids who weren’t that great at writing yet, he felt his heart warm up at the sight. Chanyeol was most definitely made for this job, with his caring personality, and it was an absolute pleasure to see it up close like this.

Feeling inspired by his boyfriend, Baekhyun took another potato and cut it in half, taking one of the two parts and getting his knife to start carving. He wanted to make his own drawing and his own stamp, wanted to share his dreams for the future to make sure Chanyeol knew he was in them.

And so he got to work, glad that he wouldn’t take as long as the kids to get it done, because then he wouldn’t have been able to finish before his boyfriend concluded their time was up, “alright. Pencils down! We are going to show each other our work now.”

The kids all put down their pencils after some more encouragement, some having been too lost in their work to notice the request straight away, and Baekhyun laughed at it quietly because of how sweet these kids were.

Chanyeol shared a look with him before the first kid came up to tell about her dream of becoming the best five year old ballet dancer in South Korea. Her stamp was a weirdly shaped tutu that Chanyeol had made, but it looked better than anything Baekhyun could have made of it and so he was thankful he hadn’t gotten the task.

One by one the kids came up to tell their stories, all of them looking as proud as a peacock while presenting. Chanyeol turned out to be very good at cutting their stories short, because Baekhyun realised soon enough that if he didn’t, the kids would just keep on talking and talking about their lives.

It was kind of funny to listen to them talk about pointless details, but it could get boring quickly, and the kids didn’t have as big of an attention span as Baekhyun had. In the end, though, everyone managed to do their presentations in the amount of time Chanyeol had set out for it. Or, so it would have been, hadn’t Seul Gi raised her hand again to comment.

“Chanyeol ssaem,” she brought out as she was allowed to speak, “I want to know what Baekhyun’s dream for the New Year is.”

Chanyeol looked surprised to hear the request, and he replied with a soft, “I don’t think Baekhyun prepared for that, though, Seul Gi.” But Baekhyun got up, stopped Chanyeol from speaking by touching his arm softly.

“Actually,” he said, “I did prepare. When all the stamps were done I made my own. I’ll share it with them if you’ll let me.” He nodded when Chanyeol looked in his direction, clearly telling him with his eyes that he didn’t have to do it if he didn’t want to. Baekhyun brushed it off, feeling more at ease around the kids now that more time had passed.

Then Chanyeol stepped aside, giving him space to present, and he stood back with his arms folded as he intently watched his boyfriend, not even his drawing. Baekhyun could feel his eyes on him even when he looked at the class, letting his eyes roam all of their cute little faces.

“So, I wrote that I want to feel happy this year and spend it in love,” Baekhyun started explaining as he held up his drawing for the kids to see too, “I want to stay healthy and happy. That’s really all that I want, and so I made my stamp about that.”

He handed his drawing to Chanyeol so he could take the second piece of paper, which he unfolded to show a collection of the same stamp that had left red hearts all around the paper. The flurry of red was bright against the white paper, and even though the heart wasn’t perfect, it was clearly a heart shaped form.

It wasn’t _just_ a heart, though. It was a heart with a ‘C’ carved into it. His hopes and dreams, carved into a potato and pressed to a sheet of paper, they were enough to make Chanyeol gasp right next to him.

“The heart,” he told the children, “is supposed to be both my health and love, and the C, it stands for Chanyeol ssaem, because he makes my heart feel loved.” He smiled at the kids first before he looked at his boyfriend, who to his surprise looked a little shocked rather than happy about it. There was no flirty smile, just wide eyes and a half open mouth.

Seul Gi, who was still standing, cut through the silence with another question that quickly explained all about Chanyeol’s expression. “But,” she pouted, sounding slightly disappointed by his answer, “I thought you were an angel without wings, wouldn’t you want your wings back instead?”

Baekhyun laughed dryly, sending his understanding smile her way, and he shook his head then. “I guess it makes sense to think I’d want that. You think angels are pretty special, don’t you?” He asked, not just to Seul Gi, but to the whole class. Most kids just watched him, but Seul Gi herself nodded, determined in her answers.

“Maybe they are,” Baekhyung shrugged, “I don’t think so, but maybe you’re right. However,” he held up his finger, which made a few kids lean in closer as they waited patiently for the catch, “why would I want to fly if I have no reason to leave? If I have everything I want right here, why would I want to get back my wings only so I can fly away?”

Seul Gi tipped her head to the side again, like she had done before, and her eyes were up at the ceiling as she thought of that answer. He wasn’t sure it would make sense to them at all, they were so young, but he knew this wasn’t just an answer to the kids. It was an explanation towards Chanyeol more than anything.

“I am happy right here, right now, and all I want is for it to last,” he smiled, and Seul Gi, who had understood at least part of what he had said, frowned her cute little eyebrows together.

“Even if that means you’re a fake angel?” she asked, sounding absolutely stunned by that. It made Baekhyun laugh, and he kind of wanted to go up to her and ruffle her hair, tell her to never lose that curiosity and daring side of her personality. Instead he sent her a smile, hoping somehow she’s understand, before he glanced at his boyfriend.

“Even if it means I’m a fake angel,” he confirmed.

At the end of the day, after they sang the song together, Baekhyun helped Chanyeol clean up as the kids played. Chanyeol was a bit quieter than usual, the way he sometimes got now, as if he was lost in his thoughts, but Baekhyun decided not to ask if he was okay until they were alone. It still worried him, though, the fact that his boyfriend had barely looked at him since he had presented his drawing, let alone talk to him.

He was dying to talk to him, to ask what the hell was going on, but he would have to wait another ten minutes before he could. Until then he’d have to keep an eye on the kids as well as put all the coloured pencils in a big box that said ‘coloured pencils’. It wasn’t a difficult task, it was rather boring in fact, but he got to watch the kids play around some more before they’d be off to their parents.

Right before it was time to leave, Seul Gi went up to him and tugged on his sleeve a little hurriedly. Baekhyun paused his work and kneeled down to get face to face with her. She was staring at him up close, her eyes roaming his face as if she was looking for something, and then she said, “you’re not what I thought an angel would be like.”

Baekhyun felt at a loss for words again, speechless because of this child that kept surprising him by acting so beyond her age. He wanted to defend himself in front of this six year old, but there was no need to, because then a grin broke through the seriousness of her face, “but I like you, so I guess that doesn’t matter. Chanyeol ssaem thinks you are beautiful and I think so too. Thank you for singing with us today.”

She held out her hand then, and Baekhyun looked at it for a moment before he tried shaking it. As he did, she sighed and rolled her eyes at him, “not like that. I want a high five, like we always do with Chanyeol ssaem.”

She was a great pouter, Baekhyun bet she could get whatever she desired if she did this often enough with her rich parents. It got him to high five her, after which she said a goodbye and bounced off, realising that the door to the hallway had been opened, signalling the end of the day.

Kids dripped out like they wanted nothing more than to go home, jumping up against their parents’ legs, and Baekhyun watched with a fondness even though he’d probably never get to be in those parents’ shoes.

It took about three minutes for the whole room to empty, and then they were alone with nothing but the sound of children’s laughter in the background, coming from outside. And just like that, the mood in the room had changed from making it feel full of sunshine to a cloudy sky. The wind picked up, blowing around them and sending shivers down Baekhyun’s back. Until he just stopped.

He stopped so he could look at his boyfriend, who was still hard at work trying to get all the potatoes together, and he wondered if he was only imagining the distance between them because they were standing so far apart.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, voicing the question a little tentatively. There was uncertainty in his voice, wondering if it was alright to ask this much, but he asked anyway. What else could he do?

Chanyeol paused, two pink coloured potato stamps in his hands, but his eyes were still on the table instead of on Baekhyun. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied before he unfroze and walked over to the trash can to throw the potatoes away. Baekhyun heard the loud clatter as they fell to the bottom, matching the drop his heart had made.

“Don’t lie to me,” he told his boyfriend, managing to sound demanding enough to actually get somewhere with it. He sounded like he knew the answer was bullshit and like he was very much done with it, and Chanyeol sighed, the sound audible from a few tables away.

Baekhyun kept his eyes on him at all times just to see if anything about his body language or his expression would betray his true thoughts or feelings. Nothing stood out to him, though, nothing worth mentioning, which hopefully meant that his boyfriend was being honest now.

“Fine,” Chanyeol huffed before flopping down on the table he was standing at. He placed his feet on the chair, looking even more like a giant that way, and stared back at Baekhyun. He dragged the silence for another moment, until Baekhyun was about to ask again, and then he admitted, “I’m just thinking a lot. I’m trying to make myself believe what you just said, but it’s hard to fight the doubt inside my heart.”

Baekhyun was the one to break eye contact this time, his gaze falling to his shoes along with his heart. “Oh,” he mumbled softly, feeling down all of a sudden, “so this is still about you not believing me when I say I want to stay on earth with you, rather than go back to heaven? Even with the promise we made to each other?”

Chanyeol stayed quiet for a while, which was as much a confirmation as an actual ‘yes’ would have been, but rather than him leave it at that, Baekhyun’s boyfriend decided to at least say something about it, “I know I shouldn’t, I’m trying to, okay? I just- Jaehyun pretended to love me as well and then he left me, so.”

“That’s different,” Baekhyun said, because it was in the lie that he had created his story around, “he left you because he got an accident, it cannot be compared to me willingly leaving you. And I know, I know I’ve lied to you before about things, but I wouldn’t lie about this.” He was repeating the same words again, and he would without any doubt make the same promise he had done days ago, but it would mean nothing if Chanyeol wouldn’t trust him.

There was more silence as his boyfriend leaned on his arms, which he had placed on his knees, and he stared at Baekhyun so intently it almost started feeling unnerving. “Just give me some time, Baek. It’ll be okay eventually, I promise,” he sent Baekhyun a weak smile as he told him that, and the fallen one let his shoulders droop as he realised that that was pretty much the only thing he could do.

He nodded then, deciding to change the subject to something else. He walked up to his boyfriend as he did so, taking in his face carefully as he did, “okay. I will, if you will come out to meet Tae-ho. I mean properly meet this time, now that you know about him. He’s still an old friend and he will be around for some time, I’d like it if you at least wouldn’t hate on each other. Maybe, like I don’t know, but maybe a night out would make you understand him better and would show him how serious I am about you.”

Clearly Chanyeol wasn’t pleased with the suggestion. He didn’t look like he was jumping for joy at the thought of spending time with the demon, but as he felt Baekhyun’s hand on his arm he relaxed some more. He leaned into the touch as Baekhyun softly rubbed his arm, and after thinking about it for a minute, he pulled Baekhyun into a kiss and whispered, “okay, I’ll do it. But only for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here comes the trouble. Y'all ready? Strap in now, especially if you're weak hearted. 
> 
> Anyway, for those wondering: this fic will be around 35 chapters. I say around because I can't be certain, but with the way I've planned it now it's around 35. 


	27. When Crows Cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baekhyun dropped his cocktail shaker, which fell to the ground with a loud bang that was mostly drowned out by the music. The contents leaked out, wetting his shoes and making the floor slippery as the liquid found its way to spread, like blood on tiles, and he felt that way too. Like he had been shot, and now he was slowly bleeding to death, because he knew what would happen now.

If there was ever a time to have Chanyeol properly meet Tae-ho and to have Minseok and Kyungsoo meet the guy for the first time, then it was on a busy night at the bar. Sure, Baekhyun would have to work too, but it was really the best place for them all to come together. Especially because with Minseok’s busy work schedule it would be difficult to find another moment.

They didn’t have to, though, because there was plenty of distraction on a live-music night, when the bass was so loud that talking non-stop was impossible. It meant that even if they wanted to, there was no room for serious talk or long lasting conversations. Or, that was really what Baekhyun was hoping for.

And so that was what happened. Chanyeol agreed to give Tae-ho a second chance and Minseok and Kyungsoo figured there was no way around meeting him as well, seeing how the demon was meant to help him out with his case.

After a quick introduction to Minseok, who shot Tae-ho a wary look as the demon threw him his best grin, both his boyfriend and ex best friend sat down at the bar while Baekhyun and Minseok got to work behind it. Kyungsoo would hopefully join them later, if he had the guts to, because there was still a chance Tae-ho would recognise him for who he was, and he wasn’t sure yet whether it was worth the risk. Baekhyun could understand that much.

Another good thing about having this meeting at the bar was that even though Chanyeol and Tae-ho weren’t fighting right now, they had actually politely nodded at each other when they met for the second time, Baekhyun could make sure he was close to them at all times. He could serve drinks while at the same time keep an eye on the two in front of him. Luckily, Minseok seemed to understand why he never worked with him on his side of the bar and he let him do his thing.

At first there was tension between the two, a lot of it. With the lack of alcohol in their systems and the lingering memory of their fight, both Chanyeol and Tae-ho seemed to make a sport of it not to look at each other whatsoever. As if there was a price for the one who was able to ignore the other the longest. And so Baekhyun figured they needed a bit of help.

When the first band started playing, the bar only half full with the promise of more people showing up later, Baekhyun put down two glasses of beer for his guests. To start off with. He knew to get them anywhere near friendly it would take a lot more than that. Probably a whole lot more, knowing Tae-ho at least. He knew his boyfriend was kind of a lightweight when it came to alcohol, but it all depended on his mood and how much food he had had as well.

“So, when am I meeting that boyfriend of yours?” Tae-ho asked Minseok as he served the guy next to him, leaning over to get his point clear, “I heard he’s one of mine,” he cocked an eyebrow and grinned even brighter, and it didn’t take a genius to tell that Minseok really didn’t fucking like Tae-ho. He didn’t like the looks of him at all, for whatever reason, and Baekhyun kind of understood. It was a little like best friend rivalry.

 

“At the end of the night, when everyone’s gone and I can keep my eyes on your filthy hands,” Minseok replied, as cocky as ever and without a hint of a smile on his face as he kept the glass at the tap. He was motherfucking badass, and once again Baekhyun became aware of how this, this was the part of his friend that must have attracted Kyungsoo’s attention.

Baekhyun smiled, hiding it as he looked down, but he could tell that Chanyeol had seen it from the way he was smiling too. His eyes trailed back up to Baekhyun just as the fallen one had glanced up to look at him as well, and they stared at each other a little shyly.

They were better now, him and Chanyeol, much better now that their first fight had passed. In a way it had been exactly what they had needed to bring their relationship closer together, a way for them to open up more to each other. And sure, there had been a fair share of awkwardness, especially the day Baekhyun had come over to Chanyeol’s work, but from that moment on things had started looking up again.

Rather than Tae-ho having achieved his goal of creating a wig between them, they had been tied tighter together, and Baekhyun was actually thankful for that. He figured, judging by how Chanyeol was actually trying to initiate conversation with the demon now, that his boyfriend thought the same.

Clearly he had enough trust in Baekhyun to believe that the handsome man next to him posed no threat to their relationship, that he was nothing but a friend from the past that so happened to care for Baekhyun too. It was nice to see how his boyfriend truly believed him, truly had faith in them together as a couple, and he couldn’t deny that it was a relief to find that his past and present seemed to be mixing quite alright. For as far as that was possible, of course.

Tae-ho would never fit into his present, Baekhyun knew that now. He had even less of a spot in his future, but maybe if he and Chanyeol found a way to get along, he could be a tiny fragment of Baekhyun’s life still. He could stay that friend that had been around for so long, and even though they’d hardly talk, whenever they’d be together it would feel as if they had never really missed out on anything.

Like water and oil, they didn’t really mix because oil wasn’t sulible, but if one were to stir the two together, they would find a way to live amongst each other. The oil would swirl through the water in perfect drops before creating a layer on the surface again. Tae-ho was the oil, and right now someone had swirled it through the water, creating a current, and Baekhyun took solace in the fact that it was only a matter of time before things would turn back to the way they used to be.

After another round of shots, which they had moved on to once the second band had appeared on stage, the tension in Chanyeol’s shoulders had dissolved some and Tae-ho’s attempts at starting a conversation weren’t getting disregarded as much as before. Baekhyun could tell from the corners of his eyes, as he helped another customer, that Chanyeol was talking, his eyes still guarded but his lips moving nonetheless.

Sometimes, when there was a lull in the stream of customers, Baekhyun stood to listen in on their talks. Even when he was serving someone a bit further away from them, he would still try and pay attention to their conversation, though that meant sometimes he had to ask for an order twice.

He just wanted to make sure nothing too serious would be brought up between them, such as no mentions of Baekhyun’s fall or his brief relationship with Tae-ho. However, the only thing tying them together was Baekhyun, and so he was more often than not the topic of their brief interactions.

“You should have seen what he used to look like before he got this host body,” Tae-ho chuckled as he told Chanyeol, who was watching him with some sort of amusement, “honestly, it was a strange looking dude with eyes too close to one another and with this lanky body. I think he was taller than you are, heavily tattooed and a tad more muscular too.”

Tae-ho tried to give some measurements with his arms, making Chanyeol understand apparently because the latter was nodding along, “it was funny. I think if he hadn’t had that body he wouldn’t have had that much power. Baekhyun’s truly a softy, he needed that height to look authorative.”

Chanyeol laughed at that, maybe because he agreed, and he sent Baekhyun a soft smile as his boyfriend passed him on his way to another customer. “But anyway,” Tae-ho went on, “he truly got himself an upgrade with your ex-boyfriend’s body. Speaking of which, isn’t that freaking weird? That he looks like him and all?”

Baekhyun heard the question just as he set down another two shot glasses filled to the brim, and suddenly he didn’t like where this was going. From playful memories of demon Baekhyun to Jaehyun, it felt like a full one-eighty turn, and this, this was dangerous territory. “Tae-ho,” he warned, “let’s not talk about that, okay?”

He saw his old friend’s curious eyes on him just as Minseok called him over, voice urgent as he had a phone pressed to his ear, “Baek! Take over for me, please, I have to take this call. It’s the manager of our closing act, they’re lost. I’ll be back in just a minute, okay?” He was already backing away to the staff room door, leaving Baekhyun with a full bar to manage as well as a conversation spiralling out of control.

Sending Tae-ho another warning look, Baekhyun had no other choice than to get back to work, now needing to serve both sides of the bar, and with the end of the second band’s set in view, it was getting more crowded by the second.

“It’s a little weird, but I can tell how Baekhyun’s different. It’s as if Jaehyun had a twin I never knew about. Yes, he looks the same, although Baek’s style is completely different from my ex boyfriend’s, but he’s nothing like Jaehyun,” Chanyeol told Tae-ho, his eyes on his hard-working boyfriend who was running around on Minseok’s side to get everyone their drinks.

Tae-ho followed his line of sight, watching Baekhyun rush closer to them, to where his cocktail shaker was waiting for him. He was able to fully focus on the drink he was making, lost in a world of his own, and both Chanyeol and Tae-ho watched as Baekhyun lifted two bottles of alcohol at the same time to pour the contents in his cup.

“I admire you for how you took him in,” the demon hummed before he downed the shot that had been put in front of him a little earlier, all while still staring at Baekhyun as he now shook the shaker in his hands, mixing the desired drink for whoever had asked for it. Baekhyun looked like he belonged there, with the sultry attitude Tae-ho remembered him having used to its fullest extent, even if it was only a part of Baekhyun’s personality.

“I know he’s a catch,” the demon went on, “absolutely, but after everything that happened to you and your old lover, I would have expected you to run away as far as possible to forget about it all.”

Chanyeol smiled softly at those words, humming as he agreed with Tae-ho on Baekhyun being a catch. He briefly allowed himself to watch the other’s longing gaze, the one that was clearly settled on Baekhyun’s face, but then he averted his eyes so he could look at his boyfriend as well.

From their previous meeting it had already been clear that Tae-ho had wanted Baekhyun to be his back when they had been in hell, god, maybe he still wanted him, but he also knew what Baekhyun thought of that. His boyfriend had explained how their friendship had run deep, and that was something that was easy to distinguish when you saw them together, yet Chanyeol no longer envied the demon.

“Yeah, well, it was hard for a while,” Chanyeol admitted, picking back up their conversation as he looked at the empty glass between his fingers, “knowing how Jaehyun died and how Baekhyun had taken his body, it actually took a while for me to accept that and to open up to Baekhyun, but when we met I instantly felt like we clicked. And an accident is an accident, I’m sure that Jaehyun would have wanted me to move on if he had been able to give me some final words.”

And that, that was the moment the mood changed. For Tae-ho’s loving glance to break away from Baekhyun and turn to him, forehead wrinkled into a frown as the words Chanyeol had uttered settled into his brain.

“What do you mean, accident?” Tae-ho’s voice rang clear over the temporary lull in the music, even if it picked up again seconds later, with the beat dropping and leaving everyone shaking from the dark bass used.

However, it had been quiet enough for Baekhyun to hear the question Tae-ho had directed at his boyfriend and one look at the two of them made him instantly realise what this was about. It was the one thing he had wanted to prevent, the whole reason why he had chosen for this meeting to take place at a bar. It was happening: Baekhyun’s lie was exposed. His final lie.

Shit.

Baekhyun dropped his cocktail shaker, which fell to the ground with a loud bang that was mostly drowned out by the music. The contents leaked out, wetting his shoes and making the floor slippery as the liquid found its way to spread, like blood on tiles, and he felt that way too. Like he had been shot, and now he was slowly bleeding to death, because he knew what would happen now.

It had only been a minute, a minute where he hadn’t been able to keep an eye on them, and now it was too late.

Baekhyun’s head shot up, his eyes desperately searching to find his friend’s dark ones, needing to somehow show him that he hadn’t told Chanyeol the exact truth without having to use words. The demon however, paid no attention to him. In fact, Baekhyun swore it was as if he was purposely ignoring him, turning even more towards Chanyeol and away from Baekhyun with this playful smile that only he was able to recognise.

Baekhyun watched his lips move as the beat picked up again, shaping words which he could not hear, but he didn’t really need to. Within seconds he was at their side of the bar, his hands reaching out towards Tae-ho, and he wanted so badly to slam a fist down on his hand or even worse, actually punch him in the face, but it was all too late.

Baekhyun was too slow, much slower than the steady flow of words streaming from the demon’s lips, and he knew he couldn’t beat it. The band was playing louder than before, the beat intensifying along with Baekhyun’s heart, and as he watched Tae-ho’s mouth finally close, his eyes trailed to his boyfriend’s face instead.

He noticed immediately the way Chanyeol’s jaw was clenched, his gaze set on Tae-ho’s smile and his smug look, and Baekhyun just knew. He knew that Tae-ho had spilled his secret, that it was out now, it was so clear from the way Chanyeol was refusing to look at him. Fuck. Fucking fuck.

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun begged, voice sounding like nothing but a whisper, and so he repeated himself a little louder just as the loudest fucking song in the universe began to eventually fade out. His boyfriend finally turned his head, looking into Baekhyun’s pleading eyes, and apparently that was the wrong thing to wish for, because whatever he saw on the fallen one’s face, it confirmed whatever Tae-ho had told him.

Baekhyun could see it the second it clicked in Chanyeol’s head. The way his eyes trailed down, towards his boyfriend’s neck, where his gifted choker was covering a scar, and then down further to where Baekhyun’s hands were resting on the bar. Did he see how they were trembling? How consumed by fear he was now that his secret was out?

Baekhyun found himself frozen under Chanyeol’s gaze, unable to move or talk, and he wished the other would say something already so that he knew what to do to fix this. He wished his boyfriend would ask, would yell at him maybe, or would drag him away while demanding answers. Any of those things would have been better than this, than Chanyeol watching him with such disappointment and sadness in his eyes.

All of it was better than Chanyeol getting up from his stool, pushing his glass away to signal he was done, and when he turned his back on him, Baekhyun cried out his name so desperately that his voice broke. “Chanyeol,” he stuttered, receiving no acknowledgement, “Yeol, wait-“ Baekhyun rushed over behind the bar, wanting – _needing_ to get out and follow him.

“Please, Chanyeol,” Baekhyun ran, pushing at bodies in his way as he saw his boyfriend’s retreating back do the same. He fought, so scared as he realised that their relationship was slipping through his fingers just like sand. Like water going down the drain after Tae-ho had pulled the plug, and now Baekhyun was trying to hold onto every grain, ever drop of water, in the hope that his little white lies weren’t enough to break what they had built together. Their tower, which had already been unstable enough as it was.

“Yeol,” Baekhyun pushed himself harder, almost falling over when he was finally able to reach Chanyeol’s wrist, but he barely grasped it as the taller kept moving. And so he jumped, tried for it once again, and this time his fingers got a hold of his boyfriend’s arm.

Time to strengthen his grip he didn’t have, for Chanyeol shook him off roughly and continued walking. There was clear anger in the action, but Baekhyun refused to give up on him. The desperation that was suddenly exploding inside of him was pumping adrenaline into his veins, making him so much faster than he had thought he was.

The loud music turned into nothing but a vague thumping sound when the doors to the bar closed behind them, and as Baekhyun took a moment to breathe in the crisp night air, Chanyeol didn’t waste any time. The taller started walking off, and Baekhyun felt his heart sink so quickly that he feared it would make him faint.

_Not now._

“Chanyeol, please, let me explain,” Baekhyun begged, sounding breathless for no other reason than the fact that his heart was beating so fast that it felt like it had run out of control. It was making him feel exhausted and dizzy, the lack of oxygen despite his heavy inhaling being worrisome. It was worth it though, for it made his boyfriend pause, his shoulders tense as Baekhyun spoke his name and he turned around so quickly that it dizzied Baekhyun even more.

There was such anger visible on his face, it was such a pained expression - from the fire in his eyes to the twisted pull of his mouth. He didn’t look anything like the Chanyeol that Baekhyun was so used to seeing, the one that had him melting with a smile and made his heart act as if its favourite thing in the world was jumping rope all day long. This look however, it made him feel icy cold and unwanted, and he even stepped back and wrapped an arm around his own waist as if to protect himself from it.

“Explain?” Chanyeol’s deep voice resonated, booming in his ears, “how exactly do you plan on doing that, Baekhyun? How do you just explain how you’ve been the world’s best liar all this time? How do you explain that you decided you had the right to keep the truth from me? How do you explain the hate I feel for you right now, for being so cruel to me?”

The words hit him one by one, as if someone had tied him up and had started throwing daggers, aiming at his heart. “How?” There were tears in Chanyeol’s eyes, but he was biting them back, “how do you expect me to believe you now when I see how everything was a lie? It was all just tiny lies building up to make one bigger one. How do you expect me to see you the same way now?”

Baekhyun opened his mouth, wanting to say something. He wanted to show Chanyeol that he had only done this all with good intentions, with the intent to protect him rather than hurt him. Why couldn’t Chanyeol see that? Why didn’t he get that Baekhyun was doing what any angel would have done? He wasn’t a demon, he didn’t want to cause pain the way Tae-ho did. He wanted to bring happiness.

But nothing came out, and Chanyeol wasn’t done ranting.

“It was already so difficult for me knowing all those dark parts about you, knowing you killed people and being aware of all the people you slept with. It didn’t feel like you, but now that it’s happened to me, I can see. You’ve opened my eyes, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol spat out, “thank you for showing me that, in fact, you’re nothing but a stranger. So congratulations, you’ve finally achieved what you hoped to achieve the first time we ran into each other. Really, you should be happy.”

“No!” Baekhyun shouted, hands balled into fists now, “I’m not happy at all! Chanyeol, I did it to protect you. Please, you have to let me at least explain it. How can you just believe Tae-ho over me? He’s a demon, you can’t trust demons!”

The words were desperate, but Baekhyun felt like he was at least pointing out some valid arguments, ones that should sway Chanyeol’s opinion enough to hear him out, but apparently these words only triggered more daggers that Baekhyun was unable to dodge.

Except this one, this one truly hit him, right where it could kill.

“Exactly,” Chanyeol agreed with him, surprisingly, but not for the reason Baekhyun had hoped him to, “can’t trust demons… And last time I checked, you fell from heaven and turned into one hell of demon. Assuming you at least didn’t lie about that part.”

The attack left Baekhyun so shell-shocked that he couldn’t even say anything, and when Chanyeol turned and started walking away from him again, Baekhyun let him.

He watched his boyfriend’s form grow smaller, his hands in his pockets and his head bent, and knew that this could very well be the end of his first ever relationship. The end of his first love. Of the love he had wanted to settle for.

“Chanyeol…” Baekhyun spoke the name so weakly, knowing the man could no longer hear him, but he couldn’t let go. He couldn’t let go of the only thing that had brought him happiness, couldn’t shake off the way his heart was breaking in his chest as he closed his eyes and saw those dark, angry eyes stare at him forevermore.

The soft, loving smile that Chanyeol had used to send him whenever he saw him, it had been replaced with the hatred and disgust that he had hoped to never see on his lover’s face. And in the end, Baekhyun knew that it was only himself who was to blame.

~  
  
Baekhyun didn’t see Chanyeol for days after that. Days that felt like weeks, they dragged on that slowly as Baekhyun's heart was held in a consistently painful hold. 

Chanyeol had taken it in his hand that night and with his words, he had carelessly thrown it over his shoulder, where it had dropped down into a cage of which the walls were covered in spikes. And now every beath he took, every intake of air, got him dangerously close to touching those spikes. Such a cruel punishment for his equally cruel behaviour.

In a way it was worse than the time he fell. Worse than the feeling of tumbling down the sky and hitting the ground. He was unravelling, falling apart piece by piece almost as if someone was brutally ripping away pieces of the puzzle he had so carefully put together over the past months. It was worrisome, he knew, but he couldn't change it. Every time he would try to ring him up, Chanyeol would turn him down by declining the call, and another piece of Baekhyun would be snapped off.

He knew it was actually bad because Tae-ho, who had looked absolutely delirious at first because of his victory on the guy Baekhyun was in love with – his enemy - , had started looking less like a demon and more like a caring human being with every hour that had passed. And if something was a warning sign, it was exactly that. 

But despite how all the pain he felt was torturous and appeared to be endless, it was enough of a wake up call for Baekhyun to see how he really didn't want to go back to heaven. He had never been as determined before as he was right then, and that in a way was a relief. Because being determined to stay down there, with Chanyeol where he felt at home, meant he would give everything in his power to fix things. Absolutely everything. 

It was why he didn't think of giving up, not even once, and so he kept calling, kept dropping by Chanyeol's apartment before and after work, even when he knew Chanyeol could very well be at work or asleep. He forced himself to face every day with his head held high, thinking of the new possibilities he would have to reach out to his boyfriend, and if his head would be hanging low at the end of the night, so be it. The next day, he'd be ready again. 

Chanyeol was his heaven, his place to come down after a long day at work and the one he shared his happiness with. He was the one Baekhyun longed to care for with all he had, the only one he yearned to be close to. He would be perfectly fine falling in love only once if it meant it would be with Chanyeol. No matter where they'd end up now, after all of this, that was his truth. 

So when Tae-ho knocked on his door, staring down at where Baekhyun was curled up on his bed, and told him, "I got us a meeting with Minsu," Baekhyun found he wasn't exactly jumping for joy at the idea of it. It was weird to realise that the announcement didn’t make him feel much of anything, but that was exactly what it did.

"Tomorrow at lunchtime. He agreed to meet us after I said it was a matter regarding his father," Tae-ho went on, "he really wasn't that interested at first, but then when I mentioned your name he instantly agreed. Apparently he's heard of you." The demon sounded like this was a good thing, but Baekhyun felt nothing still.

He didn't know whether it should make him feel better or whether it was supposed to make him more nervous, but he knew he had to go to that meeting no matter what. No matter the outcome, no matter whether Minsu could really prove his innocence or not, Baekhyun simply had to meet Minjae's son.

This was likely the only chance he'd get to fix his mistakes of the past, to do some right, and so he sighed and nodded, "I'll call Minseok to tell him I can't come to work early." 

Tae-ho nodded and sent him a pitiful look that Baekhyun didn't want to see, and so he huffed and threw the bottle of water, which had stood on his bedside table, the demon’s way. Tae-ho easily dogded it, but at least he was laughing now rather than looking at Baekhyun sadly, as if he was someone to be pitied.

"Feasty, huh,” he joked, “save it for tomorrow. I'll know what to use if you won't get out of bed come morning," Tae-ho winked at him, giving his words a very sexual tinge, and Baekhyun groaned even louder at that.

He got what he wanted though, which was for his friend to leave him alone, and after he lay still for another minute while he contemplated whether life was really, truly worth this suffering, he reached out for his phone.

He lingered on Chanyeol's name first, wondering if maybe he should try calling again, but then he thought better of it and scrolled down to find Minseok's instead. 

"Hi Baek," he was greeted happily, which made Baekhyun once again feel frustrated at how everyone around him was happy while yet for him the sun hadn't come out for days now, "how are you holding up?" 

Baekhyun could hear Kyungsoo in the back being the reason for the giggle Minseok let slip then, and he wondered where they were and what they were doing. If maybe they were in bed together, curled up around each other for the warmth and affection it could leave you with, or if maybe they were working at the bar together, preparing for the day like they often did just the two of them. 

He envied them right now, and as he listened to Kyungsoo whisper something he couldn't make out, he felt his eyes grow wet with tears. Being heartbroken wasn’t funny, at all.

Wiping at the treacherous drops quickly, he tried to hold his voice stable as he replied with a weak sounding, "I’m okay. Could be better." He barely managed to keep it from breaking. 

Minseok hummed, sounding evidently less happy as he realised this, and Baekhyun heard him whisper something to his boyfriend, after which it went quiet in the background. "I'm sorry. I guess that means you still haven't heard anything from him?" Minseok asked next, sounding more serious now, and Baekhyun closed his eyes as he pressed his face into the pillow for a moment. 

His silence was answer enough, but he voiced a reply too once he was ready to. That took a while, but his boss didn’t push him. Minseok waited patiently for him to speak up, like the best friend he was, and once Baekhyun did, he listened. 

"No, I haven't," Baekhyun whispered, "I keep on trying, but he never answers me or reads my texts. It should just be a matter of time, but I can never be sure of that." He opened his eyes and rolled over, looking up at the ceiling. It was best not to dwell on this for too long, because it would only make him feel worse again. It was better to get straight to the point.

"But that's not why I'm calling,” he told Minseok, “I'm actually calling because I have an appointment with Minsu tomorrow at lunch, which means I'll be coming in to work late for once. I hope that's okay with you." 

Minseok hummed in agreement instantly, being very much in favour of the whole search for the truth that his best friend was on. Baekhyun wasn't sure if he had expected him to be or not, but it felt nice to at least have his friends be on his side, especially since his boyfriend clearly wasn't. "That sounds exciting. Are you nervous?"

"Yeah," Baekhyun admitted instantly, "even more so because the only reason he agreed to meet up was because Tae-ho dropped my name in the conversation." He laughed dryly then, feeling small and alone again as he thought of Chanyeol. Would Chanyeol want him to go?

"So he knows you exist? That's good, right? At least you don't have to convince him you’re linked to his father," Minseok told him, sounding hopeful about saying something positive. And he was right, of course he was, but in spite of that, it didn't excite Baekhyun that much.

"Yeah, I guess so," he repeated again, sounding uninterested and miserable, something Minseok picked up on quite easily.

He chuckled softly, clearly not impressed with the fallen one's response, but he let it be. "Alright, I'll see you at work after your meeting then,” he consented, “oh, and Baekhyun?" He waited for the other to acknowledge that he was really listening before he added a soft, "don't fuck this up just because of Chanyeol. He'll come around, I'm sure of it." 

Baekhyun hung up shortly after, once he had said his goodbyes to both Minseok and Kyungsoo, and he lay there staring at his phone for another while. Weighing the pros and cons of it all, he felt lost in all the emotions that passed through his body. He no longer knew what to do about it all, about the fight with Chanyeol, but he still tried.

He pressed some buttons and up popped his conversation with Chanyeol, the one where the last ten to twenty messages had all been written by him, and none had been read. The other hadn't read his past pleas to answer his calls, neither had he seen the apologies that Baekhyun had sent a ton of. It was as if he had banned Baekhyun from his life. How could he fix things if Chanyeol wouldn’t even listen to him?

He stared at the screen long enough to weigh the consequences of his next actions, but in the end he hoped it was a reason for Chanyeol to at least read his messages, and if he did read them, then he hoped it was a big enough reason to let him in and hear him out.

 

**[Baekhyun]:**

I'm meeting Minsu tomorrow. After that I have work, but I'll make sure to get off early. Expect me around eleven. I want to talk, Chanyeol.

You owe me that much.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway, I wrote a future chapter recently and it gave me all the freaking feels so just know this isn't all that's to come. Fluff is over. Time for business. 


	28. The Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baekhyun squeezed his eyes shut again, realising that no matter what he’d prepare for his reunion with Chanyeol, be it a whole speech, he wouldn’t be able to predict what would happen. Maybe he knew his own heart, but he didn’t know Chanyeol’s right now. He had stabbed a knife in it by hiding the truth, and he had no clue what harm he had done with it.

**Hey!!! Check out[THIS](https://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/1342722/between-day-and-night-baekhyun-baekhyunxoc-roadtripau-baekhyunau) BaekhyunxOC short story I'm working on!! ^^ It's the road trip from the Beautiful World MV **

**Okay bYe**

~

 

Seeing Minsu was a shock to Baekhyun's system. It was like waking up in a different universe, one where the present was a weird spin-off of his past, and Baekhyun had to pinch himself in order to see if he really wasn't dreaming this all.

He stood waiting at the door together with Tae-ho while Minsu's secretary introduced them to her boss, to Minsu, and all he could do was stare at the man behind the desk while his mind went into overdrive and his body froze completely.

Within seconds Baekhyun had travelled back in time, back down through hell and falling up to heaven where he watched Minjae from some distance, back with his wings folded behind his shoulders.

It was as if he was actually looking at the man he had been supposed to fall in love with decades ago, rather than that man's son, they looked that much alike.

Minsu's face was softer than Minjae's had been, with bigger eyes and lips, but he was just as handsome as his father had been. That half smile was so similar too, even though back then Minjae had gotten over sending Baekhyun those small smiles quite quickly. Ever since they had grown close, he had only grinned brightly at Baekhyun, but the fallen one had seen that timid smile often when Minjae had first started courting his girlfriend, Minsu's mom.

He wondered if it was hard for her, to see how much her son looked like his father, which in turn led to him wondering if she hated him for not having taken good care of her husband, and furthermore, if Minsu hated him for it as well. He guessed he was about to find out.

"Take a seat," Minsu spoke, pointing at the two chairs on the other side of his desk that were clearly meant for them. Baekhyun felt it the way Tae-ho tugged his frozen body along after he nodded, but his body only moved because it would tilt over if it didn’t. Baekhyun’s mind, although aware of his surroundings, was still pretty much in a state of shock.

When Minsu asked if they wanted anything to drink, it was Tae-ho who answered for the both of them, "just water, please." Baekhyun was glad his friend understood how strange of an experience this was for him, to meet the only living memory of the guy who used to be Baekhyun's life, and he took care of things until Baekhyun would snap out of it.

After they sat down in their chairs, Baekhyun found himself finally relax some, going limp in the seat as his eyes never left the guy sitting across from him. The longer he watched him, the easier it became to see the differences between him and his father, which in turn made him able to let go of the past and focus on the here and now.

There were two things that he could eventually conclude from the minute that he had just spent observing Minsu, and those were that he had a better sense of fashion than his father had ever had, and secondly, he had an authoritative aura surrounding him that fit with the type of job he appeared to have.

That imposing aura was presumably what made Baekhyun shrink into his chair a little further when Minsu addressed him next, because he sounded stern and confident as his voice filled the silence of the room, and Baekhyun felt like he was much smaller than he truly was.

Their eyes met when Minsu looked at him and told him, "so, Baekhyun, it's a pleasure to finally meet you." The folded hands told Baekhyun that he was intruding on Minsu’s territory, not the other way around, and it set the mood immediately, "I had my doubts I ever would, but here you are anyway."

The fallen one swallowed as he forced himself to sit straight and remind himself of how he was in fact much older than Minsu, as well as much more experienced. He had known the man's father, which meant that even though Minsu was physically older than Baekhyun's current host body was, he had still been around longer. Besides, Baekhyun had nothing to be nervous about, not if he really believed in his own innocence.

"It's nice to meet you too," Baekhyun replied with a curtious nod, deciding to be polite regardless of their status, "you look like an almost exact copy of your father, it’s almost scary." He wasn't sure why he said it, why he thought it was good to mention this straight away, but he watched as his words made Minsu's jaw set tightly, his gaze dropping down to his desk.

An icy quietness fell around them, making it suddenly hard to breathe, and Baekhyun started feeling hot as he got the urge to explain everything he knew and to apologise, all in a rush. The words were on the tip of his tongue too, ready to tumble out in one go, kind of like word vomit, but Tae-ho seemed to sense this and he butted in.

As his friend placed a hand on his arm to stop him from letting the words slip, he leaned in a little closer towards Minsu's desk while he cleared his throat, "I'm sorry, you'll have to forgive him.” Tae-ho’s voice was soft and gentle, and Baekhyun felt startled enough to stop himself from throwing out what had been on his mind.

“Time passes very differently for us so although it's been almost thirty years for you, it doesn't feel quite that long for Baekhyun,” the way Tae-ho spoke so delicately, so unlike the demon Baekhyun used to hang out with, it showed how much his friend had actually grown. He could be business-like if he wanted to, or more like when he _needed_ to, and Baekhyun was very thankful right then that he didn't have to go through the meeting alone.

"That's okay, I understand," Minsu tried to go for a smile, but it looked rather painful, which broke Baekhyun's heart a little. However, that strained smile didn't hurt as much as the added comment that came right after, "just like I hope he understands how my father is a touchy subject, especially because he died before I was even born. Often when people tell me I act like him or look like him it reminds me of how I'll never get to find out for myself."

The words made Baekhyun feel like a criminal, guilty as charged, and they lashed straight through him, leaving this horrible doubt behind. Doubt of his own innocence in the case, because whether it had been meant to be Minjae’s end or not, at the end of the day Baekhyun hadn't been able to save him either way. No matter what, he was partly to blame, or so he felt like.

"I'm sorry," he blurted out himself, "it was never my intention to hurt you or say something insensitive." He waved his hands in front of himself to add to his words and he was sure a blush was spreading through his cheeks at rapid speed by now.

This time, the smile Minsu sent his way was more genuine, which helped ease the mood some, even though it was only to be expected that there would be a certain tension between the two of them. Baekhyun had expected a lot worse, so some awkwardness was the least of his worries. As he felt his heartbeat slow down considerably, Baekhyun smiled in return to show he really hadn't meant to be an asshole.

"That's okay, I believe you," Minsu assured him, "I mean, if you were my father's guardian angel, I take it you mean no harm. And the fact that I know about you surely means that you were important enough to my father to have been talked about with my mom, so I know you could have only been kind," he smiled as he folded his hands on the table once more.

The door opened then, before Minsu could either continue his story or have Baekhyun bring out a reply, and the same assistant from before walked in with slow steps. She was carrying a tray with food, which she put down in front of her boss before she bowed politely and made her leave again.

Once she was gone, Minsu picked up his napkin and while he started to unfold it, to tuck it in at his tie, he turned his gaze up to Baekhyun. He ordered him, "go on, then. Tell me about yourself. I'd like to get to know you a bit more personally before we discuss any business." He made it sound so formal, but at the same time he sounded genuinly curious, and so Baekhyun nodded and cleared his throat.

"Alright, so, my name is Byun Baekhyun and I used to be an angel," he started off, feeling awkward sharing this type of information with a human he had never seen before, "I've been around for a few decades now, more than two of which I spent with your father. He was my first and only job as an angel, for his death led to my fall."

He paused for a moment to see if he hadn't made things worse, but Minsu was focused on his lunch, listening while he ate, and so Baekhyun continued his story, "I spent the second half of my life in hell, until I was graced with the opportunity to return to earth a mortal, which is how I've spent the past sixteen months or so."

When he stopped, finishing up his introduction, Minsu put down his chopsticks and leaned back in his chair. His elbows rested on the armrests and the tips of his fingers pressed together as he held them up to his lips. "Alright," he hummed, "that sure is an introduction, but uh, I meant more like... what are your hobbies, or your favourite food? Those things."

"Oh," Baekhyun stuttered, blinking rapidly as he realised how stupid he had been. Next to him Tae-ho chuckled, and Baekhyun felt incredibly uncomfortable under the two amused gazes.

How could he have known, though? They were here to talk about Minjae, he had figured Minsu only wanted to hear things linked to his father. He couldn’t have known that the guy wanted a more personal introduction.

"Well, uhm," Baekhyun brought out, "I like playing video games and I love music. I am passionate about fashion, although some may not understand that when they look at me, and my favourite food is everything. I love food, I'll eat whatever I'm served." Then, when he kept his eyes on Minsu rather than on Tae-ho, who didn't know about his human life anyway, he asked, "is that enough of an introduction?"

Minsu's hands fell to his desk, where he pushed at his tray of food to get it to the middle of the table, "sure, it is,” he commented, “now eat with me. If you eat whatever you're served, you'll have no problem with anything on my plate." When Baekhyun only stared at him, he added, "I don't like eating on my own,” as an explanation.

Tae-ho was the first to move, and he leaned over to pick up the pair of chopsticks that lay on the plate, simple wooden ones that had clearly been delivered with the order, ones that Minsu had left there in preferance of eating with his own, way more expensive looking pair.

The demon chewed on the sushi that he had stuffed his mouth with before he handed Baekhyun the chopsticks so he could do the same. The fallen one wasn't that hungry, but he knew it would be impolite to refuse the offer, which was how he ended up with the chopsticks in hand, taking a bite of his own.

"So, Baekhyun, I heard you came here because you need my help, not to share old memories," Minsu asked while Baekhyun ate, "something about you having fallen from heaven thanks to my father's death?"

Baekhyun choked on the sushi, doubling over as a hand came up to his face to keep the food in. After a second where he stayed completely still, eyes wide and mind trying to make sense of what he had heard, he swallowed hard and hit his chest with a fist as he coughed up a few grains of rice.

With his eyes watering he looked back up, only to find Tae-ho watching him in shame as Minsu was holding back what appeared to be laughter. His eyes sparkled, reminding Baekhyun of Minjae once again, and he found that the memory was kind of worth choking for.

When he had finally cleared his windpipe of any left over rice, he tried to answer the question he had been asked without sounding like a dying animal, "yes, that's true."

He took the glass of water that had been put down for him earlier and sipped on it before he tried again, this time going for a more detailed description, "I fell because of his death and you're the one who can help me prove that was unjustified." There was no point in tiptoeing around it anyway.

"Saying that suggests that you made a mistake," Minsu replied, taking over the conversation as if he was giving Baekhyun some time to compose and build a case for himself, "how else could my father's death have made them kick you out? Did you make a mistake, Baekhyun?"

Baekhyun decidely kept his eyes on his glass while the question was asked, not sure what they would be telling Minsu had Baekhyun kept eye contact. Was he certain enough of his own innocence to be genuine in his confidence? Or would he look weak and unsure?

"They thought so. Before they took my wings," Baekhyun said, smoothly avoiding the actual question, "they told me how I had failed my job because the bloodline wasn't supposed to end there and they thought it had. There had been no news of a pregnancy, but now that I see you I am certain that was because it was too soon for your mom to even notice. It means that, if you are genuinely his son, they have wronged me by throwing me out."

He hoped the story would make enough sense without all the added information there was to know about angels and their rules, but Minsu looked like a smart man, like someone who could piece things together himself when given just enough material to work with.

Minsu's gentle smile from before had disappeared and made place for a grim expression, though. His eyes were on the window, looking at the world beyond his office, as he slowly raised a hand to cover his mouth. He didn't look upset as much as he did just appear to be overwhelmed with all the information, with his evidently important role in this all, maybe.

They were quiet for some time then, both Tae-ho and Baekhyun allowing the man to think about this, until Minsu himself broke that. "You don't look like the man my mother described," he voiced, the words spoken with a certain scepticism.

Baekhyun felt how it made him want to shrink in on himself again, panic striking him like lightning, but then he realised it was a question he could answer. "That's because this is a different host body. I don't look like the person I looked like when I was an angel, although there are some things that are similar. My haircolour... oh no, I dyed it blond, it's no longer the same, but I mean... the shape of my eyes and my body type, they're very similar."

He felt a little stupid for making such a mess of his explanation by talking about pointless things, but he just hoped that Minsu would see he wasn't lying, that his reaction was genuine. "But if you don't believe me," he added then, "ask me anything about your father and I'll answer."

Minsu seemed to contemplate this, for he hummed and turned his head back to stare at the fallen angel with curious but watchful eyes, "alright. Before I'll tell you what I know, I want to make sure you're not just someone who got a whiff of this story and decided to run with it."

Baekhyun hadn't thought there would actually be people doing such a thing, but then again, every demon that knew could have been evil enough to come up with a plan to try and make this their way to get into heaven. Suddenly, he kind of understood.

"Your father was born on the twentieth of June in a family of five. His parents, who grew up in the countryside, decided to move to the city after their second child was born to get them a better shot at great education. His father started working at an accountancy firm and slowly worked his way up. Minjae was the second child, in between an older sister and younger brother," Baekhyun started telling, easily falling back into his past memories.

"He was a lazy child, didn't see the point of going to school until he was almost finished with it, but he was smart and without doing a lot of work he still managed to achieve a lot of things," Baekhyun chuckled at the memory of a young Minjae realising he had to actually work to pass his exams, "he met your mother in a book store and courted her by leaving her sticky notes with quotes until she agreed to date him."

Minsu's eyes were watching him intently, but Baekhyun saw how his words were affecting him. There was a shiny layer to the man's eyes that he couldn't hold back despite his tough interior. He blinked the tears away and inhaled loud enough for it to be audible, before he spoke.

"What date did they get married?" He asked, his voice breaking as he did, and Baekhyun was surprised to find that that was the thing he wanted to know. Out of all things, he asked something that was easy to find out by whoever wanted to know. Yet Minsu had asked, which meant that he was going to answer it.

"The second of August. It was a beautiful, sunny day. They got married underneath a cherry blossom tree because it was your mother's dream. Your father was so nervous he forgot the rings, but I rushed back to get them and all went well," Baekhyun explained.

It was enough for Minsu, Baekhyun realised so when an actual tear slipped and the inhale that followed sounded more like a sob than breathing.

Minsu pushed himself up from the chair and walked off, towards the windows, where he stood with his back towards Baekhyun. He folded his arms, stared outside, and left Baekhyun wondering whether he had fucked it up or if he had actually succeeded.

He looked at Tae-ho, sending him a questioning glance to which the demon replied with a shrug of his shoulders. His friend looked confused too and Baekhyun understood why. He was a demon, so if Baekhyun had trouble understanding human emotions after more than a year on earth living like one, then Tae-ho wouldn't understand at all.

"Ehm, are you alright?" Baekhyun asked eventually, after it felt like the silence had lasted for over an hour, "I'm sorry if I went too far with that, but I wanted to make you understand... I don't even know how much you know about their relationship, but...yeah."

When Minsu turned back around he looked pretty composed, as if that one tear hadn't ever slipped at all, and Baekhyun pondered why the man was trying to hide his emotions all the time. Whether it was only because he didn't trust Baekhyun, or if he was used to hiding them from the world.

"It's okay. I was just... surprised," Minsu forced a small smile as he walked back to his seat, "at how much you know. I mean, I would really like to stay sceptical and think of ways in which you could have deceived me, but I can't help but believe you."

Baekhyun felt his heart jump before it sped up, some sort of excitement making his blood pump faster. The knowledge that Minsu was putting his trust in his honesty, it was like he had been freed of another chain that had been holding him down and now he was almost floating, close to being completely free of all of it.

He couldn't hold back the smile it had caused, but it was okay because when Minsu saw that he seemed to grow even more confident about his words.

"So," Minjae's son asked as he leaned on his arms on top of the desk, watching Baekhyun with this glint in his eyes that the fallen one clearly remembered from his father from the nights where they would come up with plans to sneak out of the house, "tell me then, what can I do for you?"

 

 

~

The meeting with Minsu had left Baekhyun slightly more optimistic. He was certain the man was related to Minjae, there was no doubt in that, and to know that had been a huge relief for him.

However, his happiness had nothing to do with how the man’s existence was proof that heaven had been wrong to throw him out, neither did it have anything to do with how that brought him the possibility of returning to his life as an angel.

Baekhyun felt elated simply because seeing Minsu alive and breathing, living a good life and being an inspiration to others, it meant that Baekhyun had done at least something right. He hadn’t let Minjae down by not saving him that day, being the one to ruin his family, and that was all he needed to move on from this. Or, almost all he needed.

Because he knew Minjae was in heaven somewhere, possibly unaware of this all, and the only thing that Baekhyun desired right now in order to really finish this chapter was to tell him about what had happened since he had stopped breathing. He had no clue what Minjae had been told upon his arrival, nor did he know whether he was angry with Baekhyun for what had happened or if he knew better than to think Baekhyun would purposely hurt him.

It was the one thing that had been hardest to let go of regarding his life as an angel. It was not the way of living nor the freedom his wings had given him, but the thought of Minjae hating him. What Baekhyun regretted most about his fall wasn’t the pain it had caused, but the timing. If only he could have sat down with Minjae to talk to him before he had been cast aside.

Then again, what could he have said to make the man believe him if he hadn’t been on Baekhyun’s side straight away? Back then he had had no proof of his innocence at all, not like he did right now, so maybe in the end it had been best that he hadn’t. If he had, maybe now all he’d remember was the way Minjae had looked at him with loathing in his eyes.

Baekhyun had already known back then it hadn’t been the right time, but now it seemed like it was. Minsu was an adult now, a grown up man with a wife and two kids of his own, and Minjae had a right to know that. And maybe he did, but maybe he didn’t, and if he didn’t then he he had to know. He deserved to know how he had a son and how that son’s birth was linked to Baekhyun’s fall.

The fallen one sighed, knowing that getting to talk to him would be the most difficult thing ever, and if they wanted even a chance at it they would have to play their cards perfectly. Baekhyun had announced his wish earlier, once they were alone again, and although Tae-ho had pulled a face, knowing very well how hard it would be to get that far, he had still nodded and assured Baekhyun that he would try.

It was why the demon had left to go back to hell straight after their meeting, all to discuss their possible strategies with Lucifer, and he had left Baekhyun behind to fend for himself.

Baekhyun was thankful, though, because with his head so full of thoughts, he desperately needed some alone time. His feet had carried him down streets for a while, all unconsciously leading him further away from the city until he sat down on one of the steps at the Cheonggyecheon river.

As Baekhyun folded his hands on his knees, he leaned forward and watched the water flow beneath him. The current was steady here, slow but constant, and Baekhyun stared as the afternoon light shone on the stones and created beautiful patterns on the surface.

He was actually supposed to be rushing to work now, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to focus until he had at least let every thought that was dying to make itself be heard, pass by his mind’s eye. Luckily, Minseok had no idea how long the meeting would last, so Baekhyun could use that as an excuse if he were to be questioned, which was a very unlikely thing anyway.

Sitting there, Baekhyun tried to tune out everything around him and really focus on the jumble of thoughts inside his head. He closed his eyes to stop the reflection of light from blinding him and tuned out the sound of the water running, as well as the laughter of a few playing children nearby. He slowed down his breathing, tried to let go of the sensation of the cold air licking at his neck and hands, and finally immersed himself in his mind.

First off, he flew through the memory of their meeting with Minsu again. He listened to everything that had stood out to him once more, as if looking for something he could have missed, but he hadn’t. It was still too much to take in, but no new things came to mind, no new revelations. Baekhyun had let all these thoughts pass a few times already.

And so he moved on, let himself be drifted towards the topic of Chanyeol. His boyfriend, what would he tell his boyfriend tonight, once he’d go see him again with the hopes of finally being allowed inside this time. What would he share about his meeting and what would he keep to himself? Would talking about it be a smart idea in the first place?

Maybe he shouldn’t say anything at all. That way Chanyeol wouldn’t be able to find any new reasons to doubt Baekhyun’s sincerity. However, he had already let slip that he would be meeting up with Minsu, so there were guaranteed to be questions or assumptions based on that. Not talking about it would only make him that much more suspicious.

He had never meant to make Chanyeol lose his trust in him, had never meant for his little white lies to do this much damage to their relationship. If he had known, he probably wouldn’t have lied, but just like with all of Baekhyun’s mistakes he couldn’t turn back time to fix it.

He sighed loudly, his breath creating clouds of frost in the air, which he saw through his eyelashes as he let his eyes open that tiny bit. The world hadn’t changed in the few minutes they had been shut. The water was still streaming, surging and rolling on down the bank as it made place for more. The light was still shimmering in its reflection, and the cold was still there, like a hand on the back of Baekhyun’s neck.

No matter how much he tried to force the pain away, no matter how he wished for things to be different, they wouldn’t be. All Baekhyun had was time and patience, the want for things to get better, and he had to hold onto those tightly as everything else around him was trying to pull him down under.

His heart was the most treacherous when it came to that. It had the capability to love, to remember Chanyeol and feel warmth and happiness, but it also had the capability to shatter that beautiful image by turning on itself and inflicting more pain on him than any other thing could. How could something be so pure and yet so evil at the same time?

That thought made him pause, realisation dawning on him very slowly, because wasn’t he like that? Wasn’t Baekhyun exactly like his own heart?

The fallen one had been both pure of intention and evil in its execution. He had lied, had tried to manipulate the situation, all in order to try and build happiness on the weak pillars he had created himself. It was his doom, his destiny, to feel the pain he had caused others.

Baekhyun squeezed his eyes shut again, realising that no matter what he’d prepare for his reunion with Chanyeol, be it a whole speech, he wouldn’t be able to predict what would happen. Maybe he knew his own heart, but he didn’t know Chanyeol’s right now. He had stabbed a knife in it by hiding the truth, and he had no clue what harm he had done with it.

All he could do was go there with the pure intentions he had always had, but leave the darkness behind. He had to go cleansed of all his sins, untainted by his past, and open himself up to see the wounds he had caused to Chanyeol’s heart. More so, he had to stop thinking about his own innocence and had to let go of his need to prove how his boyfriend had been wrong about all the shortcomings Baekhyun had and instead focus solely on understanding.

The only way he could fix this was by observing the dents and scratches he had been the cause of and think of a way to patch those up. He shouldn’t focus on proving how he hadn’t been the one to hold the knife, how it hadn’t been his intention to beat up the very organ that made Chanyeol able to feel love. That wouldn’t be any help at all, because it had happened regardless of who was to blame, and Chanyeol would only think of it as him making up excuses for his behaviour.

Taking care of the inflictions he had instigated was the only way to show his boyfriend that he wanted to mend their broken promises. He couldn’t be self-centred the way he had been the night at the bar, the way he had been talking in his text messages. He had been thinking of his own feelings then. It had all been done in order to get back the happiness he so missed right now, but he had completely missed how he wouldn’t be getting that back with forgiveness alone.

Because Chanyeol could be the most kind-hearted person, which Baekhyun honestly didn’t expect him to be, by believing his apologies and forgiving him, but his heart would still be wounded. Baekhyun’s regret wouldn’t make the mistakes disappear, they would only soften the pain of them, and so to get true forgiveness, the kind that would make it possible to repair their relationship, Baekhyun would have to start rebuilding trust.

It meant his focal point wouldn’t be the apology, nor would it be an explanation, it would be _them_. If Baekhyun showed how he cared more for the way he had hurt his boyfriend than for the justification of his faults, he’d show him that he knew he had been wrong, but that he didn’t love him any less. He’d show him he was willing to walk through fire to get back what they had had.

As a plan started to form in his head, Baekhyun opened his eyes and forced himself up on his feet. He had to get to work first, knew that Chanyeol was busy teaching anyway, but tonight he’d begin it all. He knew exactly what the first step of his plan would be, too. All he needed now was a little luck to get Chanyeol to actually open the door for him.

~

After he had persuaded Minseok to let him go early, which really didn’t take that much effort at all, mainly because Baekhyun was an utter mess at work that day. He had broken more than one glass and had been so distracted that he had messed up a huge order that Minseok had to go and fix while he had been busy with their stock order, which had a deadline, Minseok had reminded him twenty times.

Baekhyun knew he was a mess, so unlike the confident bartender with the higest tip record to his name that he used to be. Yet despite that, Minseok cut him so much slack for his issues. Baekhyun was sure that if he had worked anywhere else, he would have gotten fired ages ago, but his friend was understanding and supportive despite the fact that today Baekhyun had been lessening the bar’s profit.

“I expect a full report tomorrow morning, at breakfast, okay? I don’t care it’s at the crack of dawn for you, you’ll be there to make up for all the shit you put me through today,” Minseok commanded as he waved Baekhyun off from behind the bar, still busy at work. Jongin was there with him, though, a much more reliable worker than Baekhyun was, and so Minseok looked a lot more relaxed than he had done when Baekhyun had been at work.

“Alright, I promise,” Baekhyun replied, feeling extremely guilty for his behaviour, as he tightened his scarf around his neck, ready to face the cold outside now. He waved once more before he ducked between the customers and made his way over to the front etrance of the bar.

As he stumbled out into the street where it had all gone down barely a week earlier, he took a deep and calming breath to compose himself. He had thought it through multiple times that day, whether he would be making the right choices now, but he was certain this was the best thing he could be doing in this situation.

And so he started roaming the streets near Chanyeol’s apartment, remembering how he had said something about the sweet couple down the block where he had bought the baechu doenjang guk back when Baekhyun had been ill and Chanyeol had come over to talk. Baekhyun wanted to buy it in return. Not because his boyfriend was sick, but because this time it was him going over to talk about serious matters, like Chanyeol before.

It wasn’t as easy to find the place as Baekhyun had hoped it would be, which made him all the happier that he had managed to get off at nine instead of ten that night. At least now he’d have enough time to search for the food stall before he’d make him way over to his boyfriend’s apartment.

Baekhyun wasn’t that nervous, or so he hadn’t been, up until he got out his phone with an incoming message lighting up his screen. It wasn’t Chanyeol, the one he had secretely hoped for, only Minseok wishing him good luck once more, but as he unlocked his phone and saw his list of messages, there was something else that caught his eye.

Two blue ticks.

Below Minseok’s new text was Baekhyun’s conversation with Chanyeol, the one in which he had sent a new message the night before about his planned visit today. Up until that morning, the ticks had been grey, signalling that the messages hadn’t been opened. They had been grey since the night of the fight, but now they were blue.

Chanyeol had read his texts. He hadn’t replied to them, but he had read them. He knew that Baekhyun would be coming over, he knew to expect him, which made the fallen one walk with a skip in his step, thinking about how at least he knew now. That increased his chances greatly.

The nerves struck once Baekhyun had finally found the stall his boyfriend had been talking about, it couldn’t be missed with the old couple serving a short line of customers. This had to be the place, he knew it when he got in line, and that should have made him relax more, but instead he realised how much closer he was getting to the moment where he’d ring Chanyeol’s doorbell.

And now that Chanyeol knew he was coming, the question whether he would open the door or not would be what would make or break Baekhyun’s plan. Because just like Baekhyun had to change his mindset, Chanyeol would have to do so as well in order to give the fallen one another chance.

As he walked, a bag filled with a container of soup in hand, he felt himself grow shorter of breath with every step he took towards Chanyeol’s apartment complex. He knew exactly where it was, yet he gave himself some time to double check, looking at every name tag before he found the one with Chanyeol’s name on it.

He briefly thought back to the night where there had been a heart-shaped sticker waiting for him there, back on Christmas eve, but right now there was nothing but the simple ‘Park Chanyeol’ he had seen the first time Chanyeol had taken him home. How different things were now, it almost felt as if more time had passed than just a few short months.

Baekhyun stood there looking at the name for minutes, until he looked up at the clock and saw the hands had struck eleven a while ago. He was late.

After taking one more shaky breath, his lungs filling with much needed oxygen, he raised his hand and pressed the doorbell. He had done so countless times over the past few days, but none of those times he had carried the weight he was carrying now, because this was it. Either Chanyeol would let him in to let Baekhyun could begin the long road of making things right, or he would leave Baekhyun standing outside in the cold, showing him how it was really over for them.

His hands were trembling as he waited for something to happen. It was as if he was waiting for the verdict of whether he’d get sentenced to death or not, it felt that nerve-wrecking. Baekhyun kind of wished time wouldn’t drag by so slowly, wished for it to show some mercy and release him from this purgatory.

A buzzing sound filled his ears, and then a door clicked.

Baekhyun pushed it open, his brain not yet believing it had been Chanyeol to open it. He had to see him before he could believe it. In a state of uncertainty he took the stairs instead of the lift, taking it two steps at a time, until he reached his boyfriend’s floor.

He was out of breath, the bag of soup in his hand had swung so much he wouldn’t be surprised to find half of it had spilled out, but he was there. He was there, standing in Chanyeol’s hallway and closer to his boyfriend than he had been in days.

And there, down that corridor, a door was opened and a tall form was leaning against the frame, arms crossed in front of him as if to protect himself, but he was there. The door was open, Baekhyun was in, and as he walked closer, he whispered a relieved sounding, “Chanyeol.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I cannot tell you how much I felt when writing chapter 29, the one to come next week... I spent a full day writing it, it's almost 10k and I felt awful all night once I finished.   
> Prepare, especially those soft readers I know are out there, it's coming..


	29. Explode

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh god,” he breathed out, gasping for air as the world started spinning around him abruptly. He had to close his eyes to stop it, but it didn’t help as much as he would have liked it to. Especially not considering how Chanyeol was only making things worse by not leaving it to that single word either.

 

**A/N: Before I get started I want to say hold on tight. Also this chapter contains mentions of abuse. Ready, set... Here we go!**

**~**

 

Chanyeol didn’t say anything in reply to Baekhyun, only gave a small and polite nod before he pushed himself off the doorframe and retreated back inside his apartment. He left the door open, which was as much of an invitation as Baekhyun was going to get at joining him, apparently.

The fallen one took it, regardless of how welcome it made him feel, and stepped inside the hallway before closing the front door behind himself. After he set down the bag containing the soup he went about taking off his coat, feeling how the apartment was warm and well-lit. Chanyeol must have been home for quite some time already.

The sound of nails against the floor signalled Toben’s arrival and the small pup jumped at Baekhyun’s leg much in the same way as he had done the first time he had visited. Baekhyun hung his coat on the rack first before he bent down to ruffle the tiny dog’s fur, letting himself smile freely for a moment despite the serious mood that palpably hung in the air around them.

Once Toben had had enough of it, he ran off again, his tail wagging as he disappeared from view. Baekhyun watched him go before he straightened himself and lifted the bag of soup in his hand, carefully taking the first step into the lovely apartment that he had hoped to one day call his home. That future, however, seemed far from reality right now.

He could hear Chanyeol rummage about in the kitchen, which was why he let his feet drag him there instead of to the living room. The coffee machine was roaring, the cupboards slamming shut after Chanyeol took out two mugs, and the sight would have made him smile any other day. On a nice night in, where there would be a bottle of wine next to those glasses, or a lazy morning with Baekhyun dressed in nothing but a sweater and his underwear, his hair a mess.  

Tonight, though, he felt like an intruder. There were no plans to watch movies and cuddle on the couch, neither did he believe he’d be here come morning, watching Chanyeol prepare breakfast for them. This time, Baekhyun watched his boyfriend from behind and felt his heart drop another level as he realised how distant he felt. Baekhyun had done that, it had been his own fault, and it felt awful.

No.

Baekhyun forced himself to think back to earlier that day, to the realisations he had had then. He reminded himself of how he knew what to do in order to try and win Chanyeol over again, and he knew it was the only thing he could do in an attempt to fix what he had broken.

‘Stop thinking about what things are like now and focus on getting them somewhere better’ he told himself as he put the container of soup on the counter. “I brought you soup,” he said, recalling Chanyeol’s words that one night so clearly still, “you should eat it while it’s still warm. I didn’t bring it over for you to let it go to waste.”

When Chanyeol froze, the two mugs in his hands, Baekhyun took it upon himself to step up to the counter a little further. With trembling fingers he opened the drawer he knew held his boyfriend’s cutlery, it was one of the advantages of having been there before, and he pulled out a spoon, “aha.”

His ‘aha’ was a lot less bright than Chanyeol’s had been that night back at his place, but at least he had said it. And Chanyeol had to remember, right? He had to. God, Baekhyun wouldn’t know what to do if this all seemed random to him instead of remind him of the start of their relationship, back when he had known nothing about Baekhyun but had decided to give him a chance anyway.

“I got it at this food stall down the street which is run by this cute old couple,” Baekhyun went on when he saw the tension settle between Chanyeol’s shoulderblades. His boyfriend hadn’t moved, was simply listening, but Baekhyun hoped it was because he was thinking back to that night. God, please let him remember that night.

“Baekhyun,” his name was said in a warning tone, as if the fallen one was walking on thin ice, something he didn’t quite understand. Why was it a bad thing to make him think of that night? Why was it a bad thing that Baekhyun had bought soup for his boyfriend? Because Chanyeol was still his boyfriend, despite their fight, seen as they had never officially broken up.

The taller turned to him, his eyes hard and cold as he stared at Baekhyun, “soup doesn’t fix this. Guilt tripping me doesn’t either.” And, what? Guilt tripping him? Baekhyun wasn’t trying to do anything of the sort, neither did he expect soup to be enough to get Chanyeol to smile at him again with that love in his eyes that Baekhyun so dearly missed already.

“I’m not trying to do that,” Baekhyun argued in return, “I’m only doing what you did for me. It doesn’t fix things, no, but I was hoping it would be enough for you to-“ he paused as he watched Chanyeol’s face contort into something that looked a bit alarming, and when he finally finished, his voice was a lot softer than before, “-to make you warm up to me a little more again.”

He felt so vulnerable standing there, spoon in hand as he held onto the container of hot soup, with Chanyeol not showing him anything to give him that sliver of hope he was dying to get. It made him feel less certain of himself with every passing second, wondering if maybe it had been a mistake to show up like this. Wondering if he was wrong to think this whole situation was fixable in the first place.

But then Chanyeol put down the mugs, sighing quietly as he did so, and took the container of soup from Baekhyun’s trembling hands. Their fingers touched as the taller reached for the spoon in Baekhyun’s grip next, making his heart jump two steps higher in one go, and as Chanyeol turned away from him, he said, “coffee can wait.”

After his boyfriend walked off to the living room area, Baekhyun stood there for another minute as he tried to compose himself. It was a little hard to believe that his first part of the plan had worked, and as he followed Chanyeol to the couch, he immediately went over his second step, which was a simple one: watch and wait.

Chanyeol sat down in the chair next to the couch, the one he seemed to enjoy sitting in most, and Baekhyun flopped down on the love seat, sitting on the side that was closest to his boyfriend. He didn’t say anything, only let his eyes take in the man sitting in front of him as he took off the lid of the container.

Chanyeol looked pretty rough, the same way Baekhyun felt rough, but it was hard to determine whether that was due to a hard day at work or the fact that they were fighting. Considering how Baekhyun didn’t want to make assumptions, he kept both options open and reminded himself to watch without presumptions.

He took in the way Chanyeol held his ladle, loved the fact that he leaned in to meet the spoonful of soup so it wouldn’t spill, but it wasn’t surprising to find that it warmed his heart. After all he loved the man he had been able to call his own, even though right now they were going through bleaker times. Along to the warmth in his heart there was an annoying pain now too, a constant reminder of the fact that they weren’t okay, and as quickly as a smile had formed, it disappeared again too.

For a while nothing but the slurping sound of Chanyeol eating his soup along with the sound of Toben wandering around could be heard in the room, until his boyfriend looked up at him and asked, “well, aren’t you going to talk to me? Throw your apologies at me the way you have been doing via text for days now?”

Baekhyun could hear the sly dig the words were supposed to get across, and he accepted it wholeheartedly. He kept telling himself how he couldn’t expect too much tonight, not at once at least. The slightest hint of a smile would be enough to keep him going, for him to try again tomorrow, and so he’d take this coldness as long as at the end of the night he’d get there.

“No,” he replied, “that’s not what I want to do. I’ve been doing that all week and it got me nowhere, and now all I want is to sit here and listen to you. I want to watch you and figure out what I can do to make things better,” he summed up, “so, I’ll be honest if you ask me anything, but I won’t be taking the lead.”

That made Chanyeol huff at him, and his boyfriend stopped eating so he could pretty much glare at Baekhyun as he spat out a harsh sounding, “so you think you did nothing wrong? That there’s nothing to apologise for?” in reply.

Baekhyun stayed patient even though his first instinct was to copy the anger that Chanyeol was displaying, all to defend himself. Doing so would only get them to fight more, and that was the exact opposite of what Baekhyun wanted to achieve. Instead of following his first impulse, he started shaking his head as he avoided eye contact, knowing that that in turn would lead to Chanyeol thinking he was only making fun of him, and murmured, “I didn’t say that.”

He looked down at the folded hands in his lap and tried to sound as genuine as possible, “I know I have sinned, I know I have done you wrong, but dwelling on my mistakes won’t change anything about that. I want you to share with me what bothers you the most about it so I can figure out how to win you back over.”

“And what if you can’t?” Chanyeol shot back effortlessly, asking a very valid question that managed to shut Baekhyun up for a good minute. Because through it all, he had never once considered that there would be no way to get Chanyeol back. He had never once considered how what he had done could have made things irrevocable.

He was quiet for a while, thinking about the question and what the best answer to it would be, but in the end he shook his head and told Chanyeol, “that is just not an option. I’ll do anything, and I mean _anything_ , which means there has to be a way. One way or another, I can make up for what I’ve done to you.”

Chanyeol breathed out loudly before leaning over so he could put the container of soup on the table. He had barely eaten half of it, but he seemed too distracted to continue with it. Baekhyun decided not to comment, glad he had bothered touching it at all.

As he folded his legs underneath himself in the chair, Chanyeol watched Baekhyun for the first time since he had arrived. Like really watched him, carefully observing his face and letting his eyes roam, and Baekhyun felt naked and afraid under his watchful eye. He was very much aware of how Chanyeol seemed to hold all the power now and he felt weakened by it even though he understood how they had gotten into this position.

“Tell me then,” his boyfriend spoke, no longer arguing about whether things could be fixed, which was good, “you said you’d go meet Minsu. Did you go? Was he really Minjae’s son?” It was easy to tell how he was trying to not to sound too uncertain and more than anything he was acting like he didn’t really care, but Baekhyun knew better. He knew from their previous fight that Chanyeol still worried about him leaving, promise or not, and so Baekhyun wouldn’t make fun of him for asking.

“He was really Minjae’s son,” he confirmed, “there was no denying that with how much they look alike. It was really nice meeting him and getting to know the person he grew up to be. It’s strange, kind of like what I assume it would feel like to see your dog have pups of their own. It gives me this pride, this contentness to see how the future didn’t turn out to be as bleak as I had expected it to be.”

He knew he wasn’t making that much sense of things, but he hoped Chanyeol was smart enough to piece it all together. The point of his question wasn’t to get a clear answer to whether Baekhyun had had fun meeting him, anyway. The question that Chanyeol truly wanted to get an answer to was, “so can he help you? Can he be the proof you need to get your wings back?”

The lack of emotion in Chanyeol’s voice betrayed how much he really cared, but that wasn’t that big of a shock to Baekhyun. If he hadn’t cared about it, they wouldn’t have fought over this before.

Baekhyun knew this was one of the sore subjects in their relationship, one of the things that had gotten them where they were now, and he knew he had to tread this subject with caution. “I think so,” he admitted honestly, “I think he could, but it wasn’t about that today. It was more important to me to meet him so that I can finally give that part of my past a proper ending. I cannot be sure that heaven will make up its mind. Besides, I’ve promised you - and I keep my promises - that even if they do offer, I will not go back.”

“Yeah, well…” Chanyeol replied, shrugging his shoulders in reply as his eyes briefly flitted away from Baekhyun’s face. He didn’t finish the sentence, but there was no need to. It spoke the message loud and clear that he was entirely unconvinced by that promise and that he no longer knew what to believe now that he had found out Baekhyun was a liar.

“I’m sorry,” the fallen one said, going against his own words that he had uttered less than five minutes before about how he wouldn’t apologise. He closed his eyes, wrinkled his nose in realisation and took a hissing breath as he shook his head. He wasn’t going to finish that sentence, he really wasn’t. It would only create an argument and things would go completely the wrong way if that were to happen. “I understand if you don’t believe me,” was all he added.

Chanyeol sat with his arms curled around his folded legs, staring at him with this intense gaze and without saying a word. He looked lost in his own world, smaller than he was as the chair seemed to be swallowing him whole, and Baekhyun wanted so desperately to take him in his arms and hold him for a minute, if only for a minute, because right now they felt more like strangers. It was no exaggeration to say that it was as if all the progress they had made since the first night Chanyeol had given him a chance, had been wiped out, no trace of it left.

Baekhyun was trying to convince a stranger to believe him, to let him love him, and it was as difficult as it sounded. Every step he took towards his boyfriend could lead him to fall into a trap, could remove the pin from the grenade that he was holding as he walked, and it was so fucking nerve-wrecking that he was trembling all over.

He was trudging a minefield, calculating every step even though there was no way of finding out whether he’d survive his next move. It had him sweating, his head hurting because of all the excessive thinking he was doing, and he prayed to god, if god was still listening to him, to be saved once more. Only once.

Eventually, his boyfriend broke the quietness. He hadn’t moved even an inch, hadn’t taken his eyes off of Baekhyun either, and his words were muffled against his arm, but they were there. “Tell me, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol’s voice was so soft that Baekhyun had to strain his ears to listen to his request, “why did you do it? Why did you lie about his death?”

The vulnerability his boyfriend was showing him caught Baekhyun by surprise. It was something he hadn’t seen it in a long time, if ever at all. Because back when he had told Chanyeol the truth about him being a fallen angel, the guy had been sceptical and unsure of whether to believe him, and when he had explained that Jaehyun was dead and that he would never be back, the tears and worries that Chanyeol had displayed in response had been linked to that uncertainty, to not knowing what was real and what wasn’t. He had made it very clear that he hadn’t felt sad because his boyfriend was gone, only that he felt relieved to know about it, because Chanyeol had explained how he and Jaehyun had been close to breaking up anyway.

Now, though, now it sounded as if a sadness had filled him, a feeling of loss there which he hadn’t had before. Maybe Chanyeol was as surprised about it as Baekhyun was, about the sudden revelation that he had cared, and he wondered if maybe all this time he had underestimated what Chanyeol and Jaehyun had had.

His boyfriend had been so good at making it look like his relationship with Jaehyun was to be regarded as nothing but a disaster. He had made Baekhyun feel like he had no reason to be jealous, like how even if there had been a possibility for Jaehyun to somehow come back, he wouldn’t have picked him anymore.

Baekhyun had felt a false sense of safety, had been truly convinced that Chanyeol no longer harboured any feelings for the man who used to host this body before Baekhyun. Had he been so blind to it all? Had Chanyeol been playing a game behind Baekhyun’s back, one he had been able to keep a secret until the truth about Jaehyun’s death had seen the light? Was that what this was?

Baekhyun didn’t know what to think, he didn’t know what to do or what to say, either. He felt like every line of stitching keeping him together had come undone, like he was being pulled at on all sides in order to unravel more and more. Jaehyun, Chanyeol, Minjae, Minsu, Tae-ho, all of them. Everyone was pulling, and Baekhyun didn’t know what to do to stop himself from being worked loose even further.

He felt like no matter what choice he’d make, no matter whether he’d be honest or whether he would lie, another piece of him would be falling apart regardless. There was no right or wrong anymore, only a way to go forward, whatever way that was, and Baekhyun decided that no matter what the outcome would be, he would do things right this time. The truth would be the only thing that could truly set him free from his regrets.

“I- I wasn’t merely being selfish, you know,” Baekhyun replied, trying to sound convincing, “I didn’t do it because I wanted to keep you in my life, or well, it was not only for that reason. It was part of it, of course, because I knew that once you’d hear the truth, looking at me would become unbareable, and obviously I didn’t want that, but… more than anything, I thought of you.”

Baekhyun balled his hands into fists, so sure of his choices regarding the secret that he dared look up to Chanyeol’s sunken eyes, taking in his pale face as he came clean, “Jaehyun was gone either way, gone forever, and I didn’t want you to be left with questions, to be left with regrets and guilt. The last thing I wanted was for you to go through more pain than you had already been through. You can hate me for it, but it was what any angel would have done in order to protect you. My intention was to never cause you any pain.”

“Well, wasn’t that up to me to decide? Didn’t I have a right in deciding whether or not the truth would hurt me? Because maybe you were wrong,” Chanyeol fired back, passion in his voice and tears in his eyes now, “maybe it would have been exactly what I needed to move on, more so than the lies you fed me. Maybe the truth you gave me left me with more regrets and guilt than the actual truth would have done.”

Baekhyun didn’t understand how that could be possible. How could the knowledge of someone dying at their own hand be more peaceful than the belief that someone had died in a car crash, something that they had had no control over? Who would prefer such a thing?

“You were merely being selfish, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol shook his head, “you had no idea about me and Jaehyun, you knew so little, you had no right to decide what was best for me. All you did was decide what was best for you.”

The words stung so bad, made Baekhyun’s heart ache, and he spluttered loudly as he grabbed a hold of the seat underneath him. He had tried so hard not to make any assumptions, yet Chanyeol was there doing exactly that to him. It didn’t feel like he was playing this fairly, and it upset Baekhyun to no end.

The air was growing thin suddenly, making him dizzy and out of breath, and he was so close to becoming defensive because it was exactly the tactic Chanyeol was using, but he forced himself to think of his own plan. He shouldn’t let Chanyeol provoke him enough to forget about everything he had pledged to himself before getting into this conversation. 

“I understand you may think that, I do,” Baekhyun tried to keep his voice level as he spoke, “I can’t see myself through your eyes but I believe whatever you feel, you feel for a reason. I just- Chanyeol, I swear to you that it was never my intention to do that,” Baekhyun was begging, his voice turning shrill, “I never thought of it that way, either. I thought I was doing the right thing, at least acknowledge that, please.”

Chanyeol got up, apparently he couldn’t endure staying still any longer, and he started pacing back and forth in the room in complete silence. He didn’t respond to Baekhyun’s plea in any way, neither verbal nor non-verbal, but his eyes looked wild and fierce, as if his thoughts were running a mile a minute behind them.

Baekhyun silently waited for his verdict, knowing he had to be patient with his boyfriend, but as Chanyeol stayed quiet he decided to see this as a moment of weakness on his boyfriend’s side where he could deal out another blow in his favour, hopefully. Make the walls between them wobble a little more, ready to be taken down.

“None of us could figure out why he would have wanted to commit suicide. It didn’t make sense, and so I figured that if we couldn’t figure it out, maybe you wouldn’t be able to either. I was worried you would blame yourself for it too, and that you would think it could be your fault, so I kept it hidden. At least I did back then. I was planning on telling you eventually, but-,” he explained a little clearer, still being entirely honest, but he never got to finish.

“I would have fucking blamed myself either way!” Chanyeol yelled then, loudly interrupting Baekhyun in his speech, “he left after a fight, not telling me a thing about where he was going. It was the worst way to lose him, but knowing the truth I would have been able to let go easier because I _knew._ I knew of his issues, I was there for him through all the shit, so I would have found it easier to accept that than him dying in a car crash with my last words to him having been words of hatred.”

The taller brushed his hands through his hair, leaving the strands sticking up in every direction, and he looked frustrated and upset with himself. Just like Baekhyun, because, “what?”

What did Chanyeol mean he knew? Which issues? All the shit?

Chanyeol paused, if only for a second, looking shocked at his own words, but then his face was pulled back into an unreadable grimace again. “The point is that we- our relationship, it is built on lies, Baekhyun,” he went on, “and lies can only hold everything up for so long. This wasn’t the first lie I uncovered either, so tell me how can I trust you enough to give you another chance?”

Baekhyun hardly heard the question, was focused on something else entirely as he watched his boyfriend. He had been a demon half of his life and so he knew the telltale signs of someone holding back information. Chanyeol was displaying all those; he was avoiding eye contact after his slip up, kept playing with his fingers and touching his face, and it was enough for Baekyun to lose focus of what his boyfriend had been talking about.

“That’s what I was trying to figure out,” Baekhyun replied, a little dazed as his mind was working at full speed to make sense of what he was seeing, of what the reason of his strange behaviour could be. Could it be that Chanyeol had known already? About Jaehyun’s death or about his suicidal thoughts before that? Had Chanyeol hidden that from him in return?

“You knew… about his issues? What issues?” Baekhyun demanded, regaining some of his confidence when he watched as the question made Chanyeol cringe just a tiny bit. It would have gone unnoticed if Baekhyun hadn’t been looking out for any more indicatons that he was lying, and that cringe was one. “Did you know he was suicidal? Is that why you keep repeating it would have been easier to accept his death if you had known it was suicide?”

Chanyeol didn’t answer him, he just stood there in the middle of the room with his hands balled into fists at his sides, and Baekhyun felt like it was nothing but a confirmation of his thoughts. But he couldn’t assume, he needed a vocal validation to make sure of it. “Chanyeol, answer me,” he ordered, knowing that all his boyfriend would need to snap was a bit of pressure, “now.”

Looking like a deer in headlights, Chanyeol’s eyes flitted back and forth, never settling on one thing or the other, and Baekhyun pushed himself up so he could stand too, aware of how it came across as threatening.

His boyfriend registered the movement from the corners of his eyes, Baekhyun could tell by the way he took the tiniest step back, but Baekhyun took one forward in return, “you knew, didn’t you? That’s why you’re so sure about how it would have been easier to deal with the truth. You already knew Jaehyun had these thoughts, that he would be capable of turning them into action. Am I wrong?”

Chanyeol pursed his lips together as he listened and he met Baekhyun’s eyes a little defiantly, “yes, you _are_ wrong,” he retaliated then, “I didn’t think he would be capable of actually doing it. Yes, I’ll admit that he talked about it sometimes, about death and the afterlife, but he never once tried anything and so I figured it couldn’t be that serious. They were empty words, said in times of darkness and pain where he wouldn’t be able to get out of bed. I never thought he would actually go through with it.”

“So you never once thought, when I told you he was dead, that maybe he had done it himself? You never pieced those strings together then and now you’re here blaming me for having kept it hidden, simply because I thought you weren’t aware? That’s not exactly fair either,” Baekhyun replied, keeping his voice from sounding like he was attacking Chanyeol. “You saw the scar on my neck and yet you never once went ‘maybe…’? You could have confronted me about this way sooner if you had.”

“I- I-,“ Chanyeol stuttered, stunned by the remarks Baekhyun had made, and his eyes fell to his boyfriend’s neck, where he could see the scar on display. Baekhyun had taken off his choker hours ago, annoyed with how tight it had felt, and now it served a point too. The scar that he had hated more than anything, could have actually saved their relationship weeks ago.

“Don’t lie to me, Chanyeol. I haven’t lied to you once since I set foot in this apartment, and you were right about that too: we aren’t going to get anywhere if we continue lying to each other,” Baekhyun coaxed, trying to get Chanyeol to open up again instead of turn into himself and hide. All he wanted was the truth, after all.

His boyfriend’s chest deflated, shoulders sagging as his eyes fell shut and he surrendered. He gave in to Baekhyun’s words as if he knew he couldn’t outrun this anymore and he dropped his head in his hands as he let it all pour out of him and into the air between them.

“I knew,” he admitted quietly, the words heavy and leaden, weighing him down, “I knew about it all and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t confess to it sooner.”

He was avoiding eye contact again, but Baekhyun didn’t need it in order to keep Chanyeol talking, he did that all by himself, “I figured it out pretty soon after we started dating. You were- you were in my bed, naked and asleep, and I took your hand and traced my fingers across your wrist to follow the lines of your tattoo, but along the lines of the rope there, I could feel a scar. When I felt it was a vertical cut rather than a horizontal line, on both wrists, I knew.”

The idea that Chanyeol had known about it way before Tae-ho had brought it up at the bar didn’t exactly startle him anymore, not now that he realised how Chanyeol knew way more than he had let on, but it did raise the question of why his boyfriend had reacted so radically if he had already secretly known what Tae-ho had only confirmed for him.

“I didn’t want to confront you because I had hoped that maybe I was wrong. I thought that maybe, for whatever reason, you had done it,” Chanyeol continued, making Baekhyun frown with his words, after which he quickly started apologising, “I- I know that’s stupid, but my brain is very good at looking for stupid arguments to prove my point. It told me such crazy things to keep me from falling for you at first, and it kept me from believing what I already knew deep down, too.”

“That’s bullshit,” Baekhyun bit back easily, finding it one of the weakest excuses Chanyeol had ever used on him, “if you knew he was suicidial why would you look at those scars and think, ‘no way Jaehyun did that’. Why would I have done that to my own body? You’re lying, stop lying Chanyeol.”

His boyfriend didn’t do anything to deny the fact that he was lying, he only set his jaw and balled his hands into fists a little tighter than before. He didn’t exactly look angry, but he didn’t look pleased either. As long as he would be honest, though, Baekhyun didn’t exactly care how upset Chanyeol was with him pushing on.

“Okay, fine” his boyfriend groaned as he threw his hands in the air and started pacing again, away from Baekhyun in order to speak freely, "I wanted to avoid thinking about it and I wanted to avoid talking about it even more, but I guess I can’t escape it any longer.” He sounded frustrated, but there was a hint of sorrow in his words too.

“I didn’t tell you becaue knowing about it made me feel like an asshole,” he uttered, no longer sounding insincere, “which is also why I spent as little time as possible thinking about it. I was doing quite well, until Tae-ho mentioned it at the bar. When he did, I froze because I realised how it was in fact real, there was no way around it anymore. I couldn’t tell myself how wrong I was and I couldn’t convince myself you didn’t know about anything either. ”

Chanyeol stopped pacing then, his expression sad as he looked down at his feet, “then, as the reality of it settled, I watched your face. You looked like you were the one to blame instead of me. You looked so afraid, so guilty too, and I fled because I couldn’t deal with it. I was scared and I fled and made it your problem.”

Baekhyun was left speechless. Was Chanyeol just taking the blame now? Was he really being honest with him or was this only a way to break Baekhyun even further? Was this sarcasm that Baekhyun had trouble identifying, or was Chanyeol actually serious about it? What the hell was going on?

“What? No, that can’t be right, I’m the asshole here. _I_ was the one that lied. How can you say that you are?” Shaking his head, Baekhyun took a step in Chanyeol direction. He wasn’t sure why he did it, but he did, and Chanyeol grew even more defensive from it.

He slapped away the hand Baekhyun had extended towards him and turned his body so the fallen one could no longer look at his face, “Because I _am_ an asshole. I’m a fucking asshole boyfriend, Baekhyun, and I realised it too late. I was too late then, but I can prevent it from happening again. I can do better this time.”

Baekhyun didn’t like the way that sounded, didn’t like where Chanyeol was heading with those dark words, and he swallowed hard as he forced himself to step closer once again. If he had to corner his boyfriend in order to get him to look him in the eyes, he would.

“Chanyeol, stop it. Fucking stop putting yourself down,” he told him, voice steady and assertive. He would leave no room for argument, nor would he let his boyfriend escape this.

Chanyeol was shaking, Baekhyun could tell, as the boy wrapped his arms around his own waist while he shied away again. He fingers were trembling, his mouth pulling slightly as he tried to hide it against his shoulder, and the sight made Baekhyun’s heart break a little more. He had a bad feeling about this, about what else there was to get uncovered, but he wouldn’t back off, “please, we can fix this, then. Can’t we? We both did our shit, we were both wrong about things, but we can be better together, like you said. Come on, Yeol, stop running.”

He was supposed to feel elated, relieved that this all seemed to be less serious than he had thought it to be, but he couldn’t yet with Chanyeol still acting this weird. In spite of everything, all the assuring words and displays of affection on Baekhyun’s side, the taller looked at him as if his world was falling apart.

“I thought I could do better with you. I got the second chance I had craved so much. I was a fucking dickhead to Jaehyun, but I got to press restart and try again. I shouldn’t have gotten as much, I didn’t deserve it, because who, who in their right mind wishes for their boyfriend to die just to be free from them?” Chanyeol laughed, but there was no joy in the sound, only pain.

“Me, Baekhyun, I did,” he went on, “I am the bastard that made that wish and got it granted.” Chanyeol was muffling the words into his shirt now, looking so much younger than he really was. It saddened Baekhyun how he was still avoiding the fallen one’s eyes, even though the words were directed at him.

“I moved away from Anyang because I couldn’t stand the guilt of looking at his parents, knowing what I had done to him. I was finally free but chained down just the same,” he laughed hollowly once again, “and then you- and then I- and… I don’t deserve this much. I deserve to be punished, because that look on your face as I told you to die, I can’t-,“ Chanyeol’s breathing stocked then, and he looked like he was about to pass out from a lack of oxygen.

It was too much for him, Baekhyun could tell, because he was completely losing it. Chanyeol was losing whatever sense of reality he had left, and it was visible in the way his eyes went wide and his hands came up to cover his mouth, as if a sudden realisation had dawned upon him.

“Oh my god,” he stuttered, looking absolutely petrified by now, “oh god, you’re not him, right? I mean, was this all a trick? You’re not actually Jaehyun, are you? Coming up with this whole story to drive me crazy and then go and squeeze my heart to pulp in my chest the way I did to yours?”

His gaze hardened then, as if he had made up his mind and decided that that was exactly what was going on, before Baekhyun could even say anything. “Jaehyun, I’m sorry,” he begged, “I’m so sorry, I-“

He sounded so scared, as if the idea of him having been tricked was at all realistic, and Baekhyun watched him in shock as Chanyeol bowed, his hands clasped together so hard that his knuckles turned white, until he unclasped them and brought them back to his mouth, hiding his quivering mouth from view.

The sight of him falling apart made Baekhyun reach a point of desperation where he closed the distance between them and grabbed Chanyeol’s wrists, pulling his hands away from his mouth just so he could cradle his boyfriend’s face in his own.

He dragged their heads closer together once he did, until he could stare into Chanyeol’s dark, mad eyes. “Chanyeol, listen to me,” he snapped, “I am _not_ Jaehyun. Jaehyun slit his wrists and cut his throat and bled out in a lake just outside of your hometown. I am Baekhyun, remember? Did you forget everything that was different about me? Like how clean I am, the way I eat and dress? Do you not remember the scars on my back, where my wings used to be?”

There came no reply, only a loud moaning sound that told Baekhyun just how bad it was. “Snap out of it!” he roared, shaking Chanyeol back and forth, until the boy was actually crying and whining in a more high-pitched voice. His eyes were closed as big wet tears kept rolling down his cheeks and Baekhyun kept yelling at him, trying to wake him up from the nightmare he was in.

The loud wailing made the fallen one pause and look at him, though, realising that this wasn’t helping. He took in how small his boyfriend appeared as he wiped at his face to get his cheeks to dry. Chanyeol looked like a child this way, like a young boy who didn’t understand everything that had happened to him and why it had happened, and it hurt to watch.

Overcome with the sudden need to hold him, Baekhyun wrapped his arms around Chanyeol’s waist and tucked himself under the taller’s chin, his voice a hundred times softer now that he was closer to him, “remember my favourite ice cream and how I love to sing? I’m Byun Baekhyun, _your_ Baekhyun, not Lee Jaehyun.”

Chanyeol fought against him for a while, but he eventually gave in and let his head rest atop of the shorter’. Baekhyun could tell he was still silently crying, for his shoulders were shaking violently along with his sobs, but Baekhyun did everything he could to make it better.

He rubbed the taller’s back, kept making hushing sounds as he did as well as repeatedly saying, “I’m here. I’m Baekhyun, your Baekhyun,” but he wasn’t sure it was helping him much at all.

It turned out that Baekhyun wasn’t the only one having to deal with demons from his past, but he was glad it was out in the air now at least. They had been keeping more secrets from each other than he had hoped to, but as more of the truth came out, more things were starting to fall into place.

Because suddenly Chanyeol’s response to the news of Jaehyun’s death, back during that first night, made a lot more sense to him. Chanyeol must have been relieved to find that he couldn’t be the one to blame for his ex-boyfriend’s death once he had heard about the accident. His words hadn’t been what had killed him, or so he had thought, and that had been reason enough for Chanyeol not to feel too bad about it being over.

At the same time, though, Baekhyun thought of what Chanyeol had said earlier in their conversation. About how knowing it had been suicide would have been better for him, because it would have been easier to understand. How thinking it was a car crash had left him with more guilt, which just didn’t make sense in that light. Was it only because his last words to Jaehyun had been a death wish, or was there more to it?

Baekhyun felt like he didn’t have all the puzzle pieces yet to make sense of the full story. He knew Chanyeol, or he liked to think he knew him, and if there was one thing he could say for certain it was that Chanyeol was anything but a mean person. He had seen him around his kids at work and he knew how big his heart was, which made it all that much more confusing. Why would he have told Jaehyun to die? Surely it must have been in the heat of the moment, because he couldn’t have seriously meant it, right?

Baekhyun dared to softly bring out the question that was burning on his lips, whispering the risky words into the open space between their chests, where they stayed afloat for a while. “Why?” he asked, “why did you tell him to die then? What did you need to be freed from?”

The silence that followed was icy cold, making Baekhyun freeze in the simple hold Chanyeol had on him, and he worried if maybe it had been too soon to ask. Whether Baekhyun asking him got him thinking of whatever had made him wish for something to take Jaehyun’s life in the first place.

All Baekhyun knew that if it had truly been his wish, if he had turned it into a prayer, then the fact that it had been granted should say enough about how valid his wish had been. He didn’t know why though, had no clue about which dark side of Jaehyun he knew nothing about yet.

What he didn’t understand, though, was how if things had truly been so bad, then why had Chanyeol gone out to look for him? Why had he let Baekhyun into his heart if being with Jaehyun had hurt so much?

“He-“ Chanyeol brought out, voice already breaking on that word alone, but Baekhyun waited patiently because at least he was trying to voice his thoughts now rather than push Baekhyun away and run again. “I’m not a monster for wishing such a thing. Or no, I am. I’m pretty sure it makes me a monster too. I don’t know. I wasn’t right to wish for such a thing, but he certainly wasn’t right either.”

A deep sigh made Baekhyun’s hair ruffle slightly and he felt the way Chanyeol buried his nose into it, breathing him in for a moment before he went on with his story, and it no longer felt like he was holding Baekhyun, but Jaehyun instead.

“He was my first love and he owned my heart, my soul and my body. Quite literally too.” The hand that came up to touch the fallen one’s locks was quivering along with his voice, and it made the hairs on the back of Baekhyun’s neck rise, “I gave him my all for so long, but in return he did nothing but ruin me.”

Baekhyun had lost his voice already, a strange foreboding in anticipation of what he was about to hear, “first, it was solely emotional. He’d play with my feelings, knowing how blinded by love I was. He would pick a fight with me and then make me beg for forgiveness in ways each more extreme than the one before. And if that wasn’t bad enough, then it turned physical too.”

Baekhyun held his breath as he listened, not understanding how Chanyeol could be holding him so lovingly now as he thought of what had happened to him those years before. “My skin got used to being bruised while my heart was shrivelling in my chest,” he murmured timidly, “but my love kept me alive, because after each blow he’d kiss me and whisper how sorry he was.”  

Within seconds, Baekhyun had wriggled himself out of Chanyeol’s hold and had taken a few steps back, feeling… wrong in his own skin, standing there wrapped up in him. He felt dirty all over, knowing how this body, how the man that had owned this body before him, he had done Chanyeol wrong.

“You might think, ‘who in their right mind would stay with someone like that’? Or maybe something like, ‘but you’re so strong, how could you let someone treat you like that’?” Chanyeol smiled a little sadly, staring at the floor at his feet, looking totally unbothered by Baekhyun’s extreme reaction to his words.

“I know. It may not seem like it has affected me at all, but over time I got good at keeping things hidden,” his boyfriend shrugged lightly, as if he hadn’t just flipped Baekhyun’s world upside down, “I found a way to push it all away and act like nothing had happened. But I was always on edge, waiting for him to pop up. Especially once he had disappeared, when I could finally breathe again, I was always on the lookout for him. Because at least with him there I didn’t have to worry about watching my back as much. ”

Baekhyun stared at his own hands in shock, saw the way they were trembling, and for a moment he hated himself. He wasn’t Jaehyun, but he sure looked like him, and to know that he could have put Chanyeol through anything distressing, it made him feel absolutely horrible.

A handful of other puzzle pieces fell into place all at once because of what he now knew. Like the night Chanyeol had crawled on top of him to kiss him, without having asked permission, because he always wanted to please him. Or the way he had always been comparing him to Jaehyun, needing to voice what stood out to him at all times.

Those things were all part of the bigger picture belonging to his past relationship with Jaehyun and it showed Baekhyun how Chanyeol had been going through a lot of insecurity on his own without him even knowing about it.

He really wished he had. He would have done everything in his power to get rid of all the bad thoughts, no matter how little he could actually do about it.

Then, as he thought of this all, a horrid feeling crept up on him. The idea that Chanyeol had been with him despite his past with Jaehyun, combined with the fact that Baekhyun owned this body and everything that came with it, it made him question whether Chanyeol had ever been scared of him too. If he had ever give him a reason to be afraid of him.

“Did I- Have I ever-“ he stumbled over his own words, unable to find any proper ones to use in this situation, but luckily he didn’t have to finish, for Chanyeol was already shaking his head at him.

“No, no no. You haven’t, I swear,” his boyfriend promised, holding up his hands to add power to his words. He looked genuine enough, but Baekhyun had trouble deciding whether he had just gotten good at faking it or if he actually meant it. For now he decided to trust him, but only because they had vowed to be honest with each other tonight.

Baekhyun let go of the breath he had been holding, relieved that at least he hadn’t fucked up there, but his mind wasn’t done with him yet. Because everything that had been said, everything that had been confessed tonight, it was messing with his head no matter how much he tried to deal with this one minute at a time.

_I thought I could do better with you._

_I don’t deserve this much._

_I was too late then, but I can prevent it from happening again._

“Were you- and Chanyeol, you’re going to have to be totally honest with me, okay?” he forced his eyes up to look at his boyfriend’s face as he carried on, scared to find the answer, but needing to know it regardless of his fears, “were you at any point in our relationship, whenever that was, with me only because I looked like _him_?”

It was a dangerous question, Baekhyun could tell from the way his bluntness caught Chanyeol off guard. He composed himself quickly, but not before his mask slid off far enough to reveal his initial reaction.

Baekhyun watched him swallow, carefully holding back any emotions from showing as he seemed to consider his answer. He didn’t get what was so difficult about it. Chanyeol could have easily just said ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to it, but this apparently needed more thought for some reason. Was Chanyeol contemplating lying to him, or was he afraid to speak the truth?

Chanyeol’s gaze moved away from his, dropping to the ground where he kept it as he murmured a barely audible, “yes.”

The word made Baekhyun’s bones turn to jelly, causing him to feel like his legs could give way any second now, and so he turned away from Chanyeol with an aching heart, needing something to lean on.

He rested his hands on the back of Chanyeol’s chair, giving himself time to grow taller again, to let the initial burn fade away enough to breathe again. It was hard, finding out how the one thing he had hoped would never be true, to be exactly that. Real.

It felt like he had just taken a bullet to the heart, seemingly out of the blue, for no matter how he had been the one to ask, it still came as a surprise.

“Oh god,” he breathed out, gasping for air as the world started spinning around him abruptly. He had to close his eyes to stop it, but it didn’t help as much as he would have liked it to. Especially not considering how Chanyeol was only making things worse by not leaving it to that single word either.

“I thought you were trying to trick me at first. So much is possible nowadays, so the eyes and the scars, it could all have easily been faked. I was sceptical, but I saw it as my chance to make up for what I had said regardless of whether your story was real or not. I thought I would get a second chance at making things right, but like I have said to you before, you can only fix something that many times before it becomes irrepairable, and even with this second chance I couldn’t do it.”

Baekhyun laughed, but the sound was closer to that of a dying animal than actual laughter. It hurt too, the movement making his lungs expand against his painful ribs, and he held his breath then so he would be able to voice what was on his mind as soon as the pain had subdued a little.

He threw his head back, staring at the ceiling so he wouldn’t start crying thanks to the expression on Chanyeol’s face, and he was already falling apart inside before he had even asked his next question. He knew that if he asked, he would give Chanyeol the one piece of thread that could unravel him completely, that could make him lose himself in a whirlwind of agony.  

But he needed to know, he couldn’t make anything between them work without having the answer to this first, and maybe this was where it would all end anyway, but at least he’d know that too then.

“Was it ever real? Were we ever real, Chanyeol?” he asked glumly.

He couldn’t bear look at his boyfriend, didn’t want to see his face now in fear of what it would show him. It was as if he knew what was coming and was trying to make it as uncomplicated and painless as possible. However, there were no walls thick enough to take this blow.

“Maybe,” Chanyeol whispered, “or maybe not. I’m not sure.” He sounded remorseful, sounded like he did know and was simply hiding it on purpose, and Baekhyun hated that. He hated how this night had turned out, how it made him want to rewind the clock and turn back time to all those months ago when Chanyeol had shown up at his door for the first time.

He wished he could erase that day where they had made potato stamps with Chanyeol’s students, wished he could forget the softness of his first Christmas eve in love. He wanted to beg for the possibility to melt away the first snow and unwrite the late night karaoke song the two of them had sung together.

He wished he could go all the way back to the night where Chanyeol had stood there with soup in his hands, asking him, ‘aren’t you going to let me in now?’, just so he could slam the door in his face and never see him again.

But he knew that was a lie. He knew he would always take this mess over never having had him. Baekhyun had fallen so head over heels in love with Chanyeol, his first ever love, and he refused to regret it. He refused. He wouldn’t allow anything or anyone to make him apologise for loving the tall man standing next to him, not even this bitter heartache. Even if this meant they were over.

“Okay,” Baekhyun whispered, nodding his head slowly for what felt like a hundred times before he stopped. He felt numb, as if he was in a daze, and it was all so surreal that he no longer had control over his own body. It was how he hadn’t noticed his feet had been carrying him until he was almost at the door and he heard himself speak without having given himself permission to, “I think it’s best if I go now.”

In the past, Chanyeol had always chased him whenever anything like this had happened. Baekhyun had been the one to run away time and time again, but his boyfriend had always been ready to go after him. It had made Baekhyun feel wanted, like he was someone to be desired, and ultimately that had been what had led him back to Chanyeol every time.

Maybe in the end that had been his downfall. Maybe Baekhyun’s desperation to find love had been the slow poison that had eventually been enough to kill him.

There was no chase now, no plea for him to wait and hear him out. No sweet words on Chanyeol’s part about how even though he wasn’t sure about how real their past had been, he was sure that he wanted to try to create a future now that everything had been cleared between them.

Instead of doing any of that, Chanyeol let him go. He let Baekhyun walk away, and just like that it felt like there came an end to their story.

Baekhyun was about to walk out, about to leave behind everything that had brought him happiness, and he knew that if he did, the chances of him ever returning would be slim. If Chanyeol really let him go now, it would be over.

But nothing happened as Baekhyun put on his coat in the hallway, needing a few tries to get his arms in the sleeves and needing even longer to actually zip it up. He was buying himself time, he knew he was, but he couldn’t stop it. The last slivers of hope, the last rays of sunshine before darkness would fall, and he was holding on to them so desperately.

Nothing happened as Baekhyun put on his shoes, either, the only sound being Toben’s barking as he ran over to say goodbye. The dog’s tail was still wagging, his excitement a crude wake-up call. Toben didn’t know how much was wrong, he didn’t realise this could be the last time Baekhyun would be visiting, and Baekhyun wanted to cry at the sight.

He bent over to brush his fingers through the curls once more and whispered a regretful, “I’ll miss you, boy.”

Nothing happened as he opened the door, neither did it as he stepped outside into the cold corridor. The place was dimly lit and looked gloomy, reflecting Baekhyun’s mood perfectly, and as he stood there he waited. Waited in vain for a pair of arms to curl around him, for sweet lies to be whispered against the shell of his ear.

There was nothing. Absolutely nothing as Baekhyun walked to the elevator, pressing the button after letting his finger hover over it for a while. He was waiting for the door to Chanyeol’s apartment to open up again, for a voice to call out his name as a promise that this wasn’t over, but nothing came.

The doors in front of him opened, forcing Baekhyun to stop postponing his departure and step inside the elevator, and he paused for a moment as he tried to decide whether to turn around again or not. Maybe, maybe if he did he would see Chanyeol there, standing right in front of him with one hand outstretched towards him.

Maybe.

The sound of a bell signalled the closing of the doors and Baekhyun twirled around so fast that he almost lost his balance while doing so. With arms outstretched, he held his breath as he focused on the rapidly decreasing view of the hallway, of Chanyeol’s door and the life he once used to have.

And there was nothing.

 

~

In need of some fluff now? Read my [Roadtrip!BaekhyunxOC](https://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/1342722/between-day-and-night-baekhyun-baekhyunxoc-roadtripau-baekhyunau) fic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm soooo sorry (except I'm not), especially because since then the only fluff I've written was for my other story so oops. 


	30. The Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But it wouldn’t hurt, right? To check up on him? To just hear his voice and ask if he was doing okay? Just because they broke up wouldn’t have to mean they couldn’t talk to each other, would it? He was still allowed to ring his doorbell and wait for a reply, that didn’t make him a crazy ex-boyfriend in any way, not if it was only once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the amazing response to chapter 29, it meant a lot to me to read so many of you saw it as a plot twist. For me it never seems that way because I know everything going on in the story so it's always a guess... so thanks <333  
> Anyway: Strap in for more!

~

Instead of ending up in the safety of his own crappy apartment, Baekhyun ended up on Minseok and Kyungsoo’s doorstep. He knew this was taking ‘the crack of dawn’ a little too literally, and he could very well be kicked out by a grumpy couple, but he couldn’t help it. He felt empty and spent, needing someone to catch him before he’d finally truly fall apart, and after roaming the streets for what felt like a small eternity, this had been the only place he felt he could have gone to.

He had dropped by the bar to check if Minseok had still been there, but a worried-looking Jongin had told him that he had come to help some and was now on cleaning duty, and that their boss had gone home early to spend some time with his boyfriend. After all, he had worked more that day due to Baekhyun being gone to meet Minsu.

It had made Baekhyun a little more reluctant to go over, knowing very well they could be wrapped up in each other’s arms by now, either sharing smiles and kisses and whispering sweet words to each other, or doing things much dirtier that Baekhyun didn’t even have the strength to think about. He was sure that if he did, he’d think back to Chanyeol and that in turn would lead to him speculating about how he could never be certain it had been real between them.

He had cried so many tears since he had left his ex-boyfriend’s apartment that his eyes were swollen and his nose was runny to a point where he didn’t even feel it anymore. The cold pricked at his warm cheeks as it slowly turned the stream of wetness to ice. It was fine, though, because at least he hadn’t cried in front of Chanyeol.

He had left with his head held high, his pride nothing but dented, but with the end of one piece of thread still in Chanyeol’s hands back in his apartment, Baekhyun had started unravelling more and more the farther he had walked. Soon there would be nothing left of him, nothing but one long and shapeless string of wool, until that too would snap under the strain of distance.

It was a wait for the inevitable to happen, and Baekhyun was glad that he had at least managed to get to his best friend’s apartment before that had happened. Here he could fall apart and be assured that no matter what, he’d end up put back together again in the end.

Unlike what he had expected, it wasn’t Minseok that opened up once he had rung the doorbell. It was Kyungsoo, his hair ruffled up messily, either from sleep or his boyfriend’s hands, but Baekhyun disregarded the thought the second it popped up and focused on the rest of his face.

Kyungsoo only took one look at Baekhyun and immediately stepped aside to let him in. The fact that he did that rather than demand to know why Baekhyun came to their place in the middle of the night, told Baekhyun that he looked like total shit. Not like that was much of a surprise to him.

Baekhyun wanted to call out his friend’s name to announce his arrival, but he found himself unable to. He just stumbled inside, feeling the tears well up in his eyes once more as he thought of everything that had happened to him that night. How could he begin to explain if he couldn’t even think of Chanyeol without breaking down all over again?

“Soo, who was-,“ Minseok asked as he came out of their bedroom, just putting on a silk robe to hide his naked chest and boxerbriefs from view. He stopped speaking as he took in Baekhyun standing in the middle of the room, looking like a drowned puppy with sad eyes and shoulders drooping all the way to the floor.

Within seconds his best friend had tied the robe around himself and had crossed the distance between them, taking the slightly taller boy into his arms almost protectively. Despite his height, Baekhyun felt much smaller, like he was a young child rather than someone who had lived through decades of pain that had been supposed to hurt more than this simple heartbreak.

Somehow, Minseok seemed to understand what had happened already and he held Baekhyun tightly while making hushing sounds. As the fallen one wailed, big fat tears spilling down his face no matter how emotionally drained he felt, his best friend brushed a hand through his hair and slowly rocked them side to side.

Behind him he could hear Kyungsoo move to their adjoined kitchen, cups sliding across the counter  and cupboards opening and closing, but the sounds were drowned out as Minseok spoke, “it’s okay Baek, it will all be okay.” It sounded like an empty promise that did nothing to make the throbbing and stinging hurt in his chest fade, not even a little, but he got it. His friends would do anything to try and make him feel better, even if that was impossible to achieve.

At least he had someone to lean on now, even if they would never really understand what Baekhyun felt like, because through it all they had had each other. They had been together for years, they had a love strong enough to last a lifetime, Baekhyun knew that, and it wasn’t fair to him.

Kyungsoo was a prince of hell, the list of sins belonging to that name was endless, but yet he had found forgiveness and happiness here on earth while Baekhyun had not. Was he wrong to think that he deserved as much too? Was he wrong to assume that he had paid for his mistakes and was now worthy of his own happily ever after?

Why couldn’t it be Chanyeol? Why was Baekhyun’s heart denied of the one wish it had?

Minseok slowly started guiding him towards the couch, never letting go of him even once, and Baekhyun let him. The soft cushioning broke his fall, made him feel even softer and smaller than Minseok’s arms had done, and as his friend tugged him into him again Baekhyun decided to pull up his feet and let himself lean against him.

When Kyungsoo returned he put down two steaming cups of tea in front of them, after which he sat down in the armchair across from them without saying a thing. He folded his legs underneath himself and watched Baekhyun with a frown on his otherwise blank face, but his lips were sewn shut. It was as if he was trying to make sense of it, as if he couldn’t understand what had happened either, and Baekhyun almost laughed at it.

His best friend wasn’t like that, though. Baekhyun had known he’d be asking questions from the moment he had chosen not to go home. “Do you want to talk about it?” Minseok asked quietly, his fingers drawing languid circles on Baekhyun’s back in an attempt to soothe him enough to get his shoulders to stop from shaking. It was still too difficult to talk though, and so he just shook his head in reply, hoping he would understand.

“Do I have to go and kick his ass for hurting you?” Kyungsoo piped in, surprisingly. He was looking entirely too serious about it, almost defensive, and it actually drew a low laugh from deep inside Baekhyun’s chest. It didn’t last, but that didn’t matter. At least his body still remembered how to laugh, so maybe one day he’d be able to again.

Once more, Baekhyun shook his head, knowing that all that had happened hadn’t been entirely Chanyeol’s fault. The guy couldn’t help how he felt about him, because emotions and feelings weren’t something you got a say in. You either had them or you hadn’t, and apparently Chanyeol was too uncertain about it to give them a shot at trying to fix what had been broken.

“Did he-“ Minseok paused mid-sentence, pursing his lips as if to think whether this was the right question to ask at this time or not. Eventually he still asked, his face pulling in what looked like an awkward wince as he waited for Baekhyun to respond to it, “did he break up with you?”

His best friend truly looked as if he expected Baekhyun to hit him for asking, or maybe he just expected him to burst into tears again. The fallen one understood why too, because up until then that was exactly what he had showed them, but now neither of those things happened Instead Baekhyun only sighed deeply, thinking about the answer to that question, because had he?

Had Chanyeol broken up with him, had Baekhyun broken up with Chanyeol, or had they both made the decision? He figured it was most likely closer to the latter, for Baekhyun had walked away, but Chanyeol had let him. Neither had decided to fight for their relationship and neither had made a big deal of it either, it had just happened.

As Baekhyun shook his head a third time, he swallowed and cleared his voice, “we both… it was mutual, I guess.” It was a miracle his voice had worked at all with how raw his throat felt after all the bawling he had done that night, but he was glad it did. He didn’t want his friends to blame only Chanyeol, didn’t want them to think Baekhyun was this messed up because the tall idiot had broken his heart. It was much more complicated than that, after all.

Minseok watched him for a moment, his facial expression slowly twisting into a more comfortable looking one. Baekhyun couldn’t exactly read what it was supposed to mean, but it came closest to what he knew pity looked like. He didn’t want to be pitied, he wanted to come across as strong, but at the same time he knew he looked nothing like that now.

Then, his best friend turned his head to look at his boyfriend rather than at Baekhyun, as if he could no longer watch the bundle of sadness next to him. Kyungsoo locked eyes with him and they watched each other until Kyungsoo got what Minseok was trying to ask with his eyes, after which he gave a small and hesitant nod in reply.

Minseok’s head turned back, his eyes boring into Baekhyun’s with a newfound passion that hadn’t been there before. “Listen, Baekhyun,” he started, looking like he was about to start a whole goddamn story, but the tone of his voice made Baekhun shrink in on himself, afraid of what was looming behind those words, “this doesn’t have to be the end. It may feel so now, but it doesn’t have to be, and I speak from experience.”

He pointed at Kyungsoo next, even though he never took his eyes off of his friend, “you see, Kyungsoo, he used to be a motherfucking asshole once, before we truly fell in love.” Behind them, Kyungsoo cackled softly, rolling his eyes as he crossed his arms in front of his chest as a clear sign of disagreement. Minseok however, paid no attention to it.

“When we started dating, I knew nothing about all the supernatural stuff, right?” Minseok turned more animated as he talked, all but making fun of his boyfriend, “and rather than just telling me everything, Kyungsoo thought it was best to just fuck everything up and try to run off, like I hadn’t already shackled him down.”

He laughed then, but Baekhyun only managed a small smile, which he thought was more than enough of a victory, “he really thought he could tell me some bullshit story and I would be giving up on the incredibly amazing, intensely satisfying… relationship we had.” Baekhyun wrinkled his nose, feeling like it was too much of a ‘TMI’, but luckily Minseok didn’t go into detail about that part.

“I thought I was going crazy when he tried to break up with me, wondered if maybe I had been wrong about him, that he didn’t care for me as much as I had thought him to,” his friend grew a little more quiet then, not as cocky as he had sounded up until then, but after a few seconds of silence and a soft hum, he regained some of that, “but after a day without him I decided that that couldn’t be the end of us.”

Kyungsoo budged in then, smiling at Baekhyun, “I swear, I wish I could show you footage of what he looked and sounded like when he came to my apartment that day. It was absolutely ridiculous. I only let him in because I didn’t want my neighbours to think I was weird as fuck.”

“That’s a lie,” Minseok threw back, “you only let me in because it made you realise you loved me and that you made a mistake to let me go.” He punched a hand in Kyungsoo’s direction, not hitting anything but air, but it was cute.

“I really did not,” Kyungsoo argued while laughing, the smile making his eyes squint, and Baekhyun realised he didn’t get to see him this happy often enough, “you were a pain in the ass, like a splinter I couldn’t get out, until I decided to accept its presence. Only after I got used to having you around did I really fall in love with you.”

Minseok huffed, deciding to let it slip which was only proof of how what Kyungsoo had said was true. Baekhyun watched the two of them bicker playfully, going back and forth as they reminisced about the past. He knew it was supposed to make him feel better, to give him hope about his situation, but all it did was remind him more of how he had lost what they still had.

He sucked his lower lip between his teeth and bit on it hard, letting his eyes trail back and forth between his two friends in order to keep them from watering again. Minseok’s smile as he stared lovingly at his boyfriend was like a stab to his heart, and as a result, whatever composure he had gained while sitting there flew right out of the window.

Kyungsoo was the first to notice, his smile fading like snow in the sun, and soon enough Minseok had turned his head back as well, smile making place for another worried frown. He seemed to realise how his plan hadn’t worked, for he squeezed Baekhyun closer again, kissing the top of his head as he swayed them both side to side.

“I’m sorry,” he apologised, “I didn’t mean to make you remember again. It’s all good, I’ll shut my idiot mouth.” As his best friend rubbed his back, Kyungsoo slowly got up and started walking around, opening the door to their guest room and disappearing inside.

He came out a minute later, carrying Baekhyun’s pyjamas, which he had left there last time he had slept over so he could crash whenever he needed. Kyungsoo nudged his head in the direction of the master bedroom and then interrupted Minseok’s shushing sounds by telling Baekhyun, “I’ll leave your stuff on the bed. I’ll take the guest room tonight.”

Baekhyun was about to protest and say he really didn’t have to do that, that he could go home or sleep in the guest room himself, but he knew that would be a lie. He really didn’t feel good enough to be alone right now, and so he nodded thankfully.

Minseok finally let go of him then, and he leaned over to pick up their mugs, handing Baekhyun’s to him and ordering a quiet, “here, drink this first. Then we’ll get you cleaned up and ready for some much needed sleep.” It made Baekhyun feel like an actual child, but he knew arguing was pointless right now.

He took the mug, sipped from his tea, and tried desperately to forget.

~

Baekhyun stayed with Minseok and Kyungsoo for over two days. His best friend wouldn’t allow him to go home and stay on his own in the fear that he’d lock himself up and wouldn’t come out again. He made sure that whenever he was out to the bar, Kyungsoo would be home to take care of him.

Kyungsoo in turn forced him to eat, even though Baekhyun didn’t want to. The prince of hell would stare at him with these dark threatening eyes until he would have finished everything on his plate, no matter how much or how little it was. The funny thing abut it was that it wasn’t only because Baekhyun needed to eat, but also because Kyungsoo took pride in his cooking and refused to throw any of it away.

He didn’t only take care of getting food into Baekhyun system, though. What was more annoying was how he would dump a glass of cold water over him if Baekhyun refused to get up to take a shower or sit down with his friend in the living room. He had learned the hard way that that wasn’t worth it at all. Being cold and having a wet bed, it wasn’t the best way to mope, and so he had decided it was best to listen to Kyungsoo no matter what.

Which was why on the second night, he let Kyungsoo drag him with him to the bar before closing time, giving the both of them a chance to get out of the apartment to get some fresh air as well as get back to work, if only for a little. Baekhyun was in no state to actually work, not behind the bar, not yet at least, but it would be nice to see some familiar faces and get back to his life. It was hard to forget reality while being locked up inside a bubble.  

As they sat in the booth closest to the staff room, the one usually unoccupied because it was quite far from the music and too close to the bar, Baekhyun covered himself by pulling up his hood and then sitting back, his eyes on the crowd but without their eyes on him.

Minseok was working the tap while Jongin was cleaning some already, knowing the bar would be closing soon. Luckily for them, there weren’t that many people left anymore, which ment they’d be able to close up early.

Only few were people Baekhyun recognised, but he found it surprisingly calming to sit there and listen to the hustle and bustle of the people. He had gotten so used to spending time here that hearing the loud boisterous laughter and sounds of glasses clinking together made him feel better than the silence of Minseok’s and Kyungsoo’s apartment had managed to do.

Kyungsoo sat across from him, watching him quietly, and as he saw Baekhyun relax more he decided now was the time to try and pry for answers again. He had the decency to wait for a while, until Baekhyun had finished his first drink, but he wouldn’t hold back endlessly. Baekhyun knew he was dying to hear the story.

“So,” Kyungsoo commented, clearing his throat awkwardly as he did, “have you heard anything from _him_ since that night?” As if saying Chanyeol’s name would break him, as if asking straight up would make Baekhyun close up again like a clam sealing shut. And maybe he had a point.

Baekhyun clucked his tongue, finding the question strange mostly because Kyungsoo had been around him all the time, he was asking stupid questions. “If I had, you would have known,” he said as much, cocking one eyebrow his friend’s way, and Kyungsoo sighed and rolled his eyes, apparently deciding ‘fuck it’, and getting to the point.

“Fine, I’ll stop with the easy questions and move on to the harder ones straight away,” Kyungsoo sounded feisty as he spoke, and he wasn’t lying about moving on to the harder ones, hitting Baekhyun with a, “what did he do to you to make you break up with each other? You were so in love with him, I don’t understand what happened that made you give up on him so easily.”

Baekhyun heaved a sigh, glad he had at least some alcohol inside of him, even if he knew his friends wouldn’t let him have nearly enough to get close to being drunk. It wasn’t a lot, but it was plenty to make him loosen up, and so he exhaled once again and held onto his glass as he mumbled, “it’s a way too complicated situation, D.O.”

He knew calling him D.O would piss him off, maybe enough to let it be, but Kyungsoo only grinned at him and let out a dry chuckle that told Baekhyun he wasn’t going to bite. “Well, we have time,” the prince of hell said, spreading his arms out to show how they were alone with nothing to disturb them, “there’s no one around to listen either. All of these people are too drunk to even care. I’d say, take it away, Byun.”

Baekhyun felt salty getting such a response, and for a second he wanted nothing more than to let the boiling red anger inside of him take over, but as he thought of it, of his demon self, he felt overcome with sadness again and the boiling in his blood slowly simmered until it had evaporated.  

Kyungsoo was clearly only trying to get a rise out of him, to force him to be in touch with his emotions, and all it did was make Baekhyun’s heart ache as he remembered Chanyeol. His Chanyeol- no, no longer his Chanyeol. Everything Baekhyun did now was somehow linked to his ex-boyfriend, which was what made it so painful to breathe and so hard to drag himself through the day.

It was why instead of taking the bait and ranting at Kyungsoo, like he really wanted to, Baekhyun’s shoulders dropped and he fell over on the table, suddenly feeling like nothing but a bag of bones. His head rested on the table, too heavy to hold up, and as his nose started to prick due to upcoming tears, he quickly squeezed his eyes shut.

Kyungsoo was quiet for some time, waiting to see if Baekhyun would compose himself and start talking anyway, but when he realised he was waiting for nothing, he decided the best way to go about it was to ask questions again. Suggestive ones, ones Baekhyun wouldn’t need to talk a lot for in order to answer them.

“Did he hate you for Jaehyun’s death?” He asked first, waiting barely a second before he went on without hearing Baekhyun’s answer to the question, “no, that’s- You said the break up was mutual, if that was it then you wouldn’t have given up, right?”

Baekhyun sighed against the table a little tiredly, fogging up the glass with his breath, and he stared at it for a moment before he breathed out a voiceless, “no.” He hoped Kyungsoo would get that the ‘no’ was an answer to his final question, because Baekhyun really didn’t feel like explaining it all.

“So, something happened that wasn’t related to what you did. It has to be something you knew _you_ couldn’t fix, am I right about that too?” the prince of hell was good at interrogating, very good. He knew just what to ask Baekhyun, and he was kind enough to ask them in such a way that Baekhyun only had to reply with a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’.

“Yes,” Baekhyun admitted, his voice slowly growing a bit sturdier as he regained some of the strength in his bones. He didn’t move yet, though, knowing it could very well be all imagined. It was so easy to think he had gotten a bit better, only for it to be an illusion.

“Alright,” Kyungsoo hummed, taking a few second to think, “did he cheat on you then? Were you upset because he turned out to be a fuckboy only playing with you and your desire to fall in love for the first time?”

Baekhyun frowned, somehow feeling really thankful that that hadn’t been the way his heart had been broken. Not that the actual situation was much better, but at least now there was somewhat of a mystery left. Chanyeol didn’t know how real his feelings had been, but if he had cheated, then Baekhyun would be certain about how they hadn’t been real at all. “No.”

“Okay, then what’s left? Let’s see…” his friend hummed, sounding like he was deep in thought, until he let out a victorious sound to show he had thought of a new theory. “Did he hurt you? Like, physically? Did he hit you or something? Is that where you decided you had had enough?”

The question brought Baekhyun back down on his knees, his whole body going limp as he thought of what Chanyeol had confessed to him. The images of himself, his body, doing such a thing… The tears that had been ready to spill since before he had started answering questions, now came out without Baekhyun being able to stop them.  

Kyungsoo seemed surprised by his sudden outburst, Baekhyun could see the shock on his face as he raised his head enough to let the tears flow freely, keeping them from blocking his view. He wished he could use words, wished his wasn’t bawling his eyes out in front of everyone there, because it clearly made Kyungsoo think he had been right, that Chanyeol had hurt him.  

“Did he? Fuck, Baekhyun,” his friend sounded stunned, like he couldn’t believe what he thought was the truth, and Baekhyun watched him look up and lock eyes with Minseok, who was by their side seconds later, alarmed by his best friend’s crying.

“What happened, what happened?!” He demanded, sliding in next to Baekhyun and wrapping an arm around him to help him sit up, which in turn only made him cry harder as he felt like everything was going in the wrong direction while he couldn’t speak to make it better. He couldn’t breathe and couldn’t tell them they were wrong, and it made him feel awful.

“I- I asked him about what happened with Chanyeol and he started sobbing after I asked him if Chanyeol had hurt him physically,” Kyungsoo explained, to which Baekhyun started shaking his head violently. He could no longer see his friends, his vision blurred by tears, but that didn’t matter. He had to find a way to show them that no matter what they were thinking, it wasn’t why they had broken up.

“That- he didn’t?” Minseok asked next, and Baekhyun turned to nodding his head in agreement then, until he felt way too dizzy to keep going. He had to stop and gasp for air, had to steady himself with his hands on the table in order to get it back together.

It wasn’t until he had taken another handful of deep breaths while blinking the tears away that he finally felt well enough again to look up at them. Kyungsoo and Minseok had matching frowns on their foreheads while both of them had their eyes on Baekhyun in anticipation, but he was glad they were waiting patiently for him to speak rather than jumping at him with their assumptions.

It took some time, time in which Minseok kept rubbing slow circles into his back and Kyungsoo tried to encouragingly smile at him, more than once actually, but eventually Baekhyun’s hiccups had subdued enough for him to try and speak.

There were plenty of pauses between his words, moments where he had to fight the tears and the involuntary shaking of his body, but in the end he managed to bring out a full sentence. One single sentence: “he didn’t… hurt me, but I- I… I hurt him- Jaehyun hurt him.”

Minseok and Kyungsoo turned their heads away from Baekhyun so they could stare at each other and the hand on Baekhyun’s back paused with the pressure still there. It was still pressing into his skin, but for a moment it felt like everything else had stopped.

His two friends were having a quiet conversation with their eyes, one Baekhyun couldn’t make out over the loudness of the people in the bar, his vision still somewhat clouded with tears that wouldn’t stop running.

Eventually it was Kyungsoo who went back to asking, starting with something that was basically what Baekhyun had told them but twisted into a question, “so, Jaehyun hurt Chanyeol? Physically? And that’s why it’s over between you now?”

Baekhyun nodded, forcing out more words to explain it some, even though the words felt like tiny knives cutting his throat on their way up, “physically _and_ emotionally.” Then he nodded again, confirming the same thing a second time.

Minseok was the one who didn’t seem to comprehend why that had led to their break up, something Kyungsoo didn’t appear to be worrying about because he knew what it was like being Baekhyun. “But,” his best friend commented, sounding saddened, “wasn’t that Jaehyun responsible for that? You haven’t done anything like that, have you? Hasn’t he spent enough time with you to see you are different? That you’re not Jaehyun?”

Baekhyun swallowed hard, completely understanding his questions, because he had been wondering the same thing for days now. He could graps why it was that Chanyeol couldn’t let go of his past, realised that it could have been very hard for him to be with Baekhyun because of all the memories that his presence had brought back, but if that were really such a big issue for him then why had he given Baekhyun a shot at all? Why had he tried to make things work, why had he faked his way through all the time they spent together, if he had been hurting?

“Babe,” Kyungsoo brought in quietly, “I don’t think it’s that easy. He may not be Jaehyun, but he does look like him. I think Chanyeol may have reached a point where it became too hard to see the difference,” he was almost whispering, as if it wasn’t meant for Baekhyun’s ears, but the fallen one was glad he had picked up the words.

Because Kyungsoo had a point, one that made sense with how Chanyeol had acted that night. “Yes,” he agreed, turning his head to look at Minseok, “that’s exactly what happened. He even called me Jaehyun, thought I was playing a game.”

He choked up unexpectedly as he thought back to that moment, to the way Chanyeol had surrendered to him and had made Baekhyun see the desperation in his whole body as he had begged Jaehyun for forgiveness. It had hurt him so much, and it still did.

Minseok squeezed his hand, offering him a weak smile, as if he wanted to say something reassuring but didn’t know what. Baekhyun wasn’t sure if there was anything that could be said either, after all he had been trying to think of what to tell himself in order to feel better and he hadn’t exactly succeeded at that, so how would someone else?

“I think the only thing you can do is give it time,” Kyungsoo concluded once Baekhyun had rested his head on Minseok’s shoulder and shut his eyes, “if he lost it, maybe all he needs is some time to think and set things straight for himself. Then maybe he’ll see what he has done and that you’re worth trying for. All he needs is to remember all the ways in which you’re nothing like him.”

From his spot on Minseok’s shoulder, Baekhyun sniffled, “I’ve tried that, Kyungsoo. He just said he doesn’t know how real we were. So maybe we weren’t. Maybe this is what’s meant to happen, I don’t want to hope for something that won’t ever happen.”

He lifted his drink and downed it while his friends stayed silent, and when Kyungsoo finally opened his mouth again, Baekhyun groaned before he could speak and told him, “can we please, pretty please, stop talking about this now? Please, it’s been enough for one night.”

Kyungsoo immediately shut his mouth again, for once listening to Baekhyun, and as the fallen one sat up again, Minseok crawled out of the booth very slowly. “I should get back to work,” he said, his eyes on his boyfriend instead of on Baekhyun, as if he was trying to tell him something, but then he left, and Baekhyun felt alone once more.

~

The day Baekhyun went home again, knowing that he couldn’t be living with his friends forever, he thought he would be fine enough to get through the days by himself. He had improved some, no longer needing Kyungsoo’s reminders to do things like shower and eat, and so he had felt like he had overstayed his welcome and it was time to leave. The last thing he wanted was to cause his friends’ relationship any harm, knowing what it felt like to go through such a thing now.

The sun was shining weakly, the morning already coming to an end, but it was enough to keep Baekhyun from completely freezing as he walked down street after street, hands stuck in his pockets and his nose pressed into his scarf.

He still hadn’t heard from Chanyeol, but he knew not to expect it either. Baekhyun had been the one to walk away, he had been the one to cut the ties, so why would Chanyeol be the one calling or texting him? No, rather than worrying about such a thing, what Baekhyun should be focussing on now was getting better, being able to take care of himself rather than getting back together with Chanyeol.

But it wouldn’t hurt, right? To check up on him? To just hear his voice and ask if he was doing okay? Just because they broke up wouldn’t have to mean they couldn’t talk to each other, would it? He was still allowed to ring his doorbell and wait for a reply, that didn’t make him a crazy ex-boyfriend in any way, not if it was only once.

And so he found himself in front of Chanyeol’s apartment complex, having walked there almost subconsciously, with his hand on the handle as he eventually came to a stop. Baekhyun stared at that hand, wondering if he was making a mistake by coming here, but he couldn’t ignore the curiosity any longer now. It pulled him in, leaving him unsure but excited, and the thought of hearing Chanyeol say ‘hello’ was enough of a reason for him to press down the handle and open the door.

The hallway was deserted, no one there to open the next door for him, the one leading him to Chanyeol’s actual apartment, and so he stood still once the heavy front entrance closed behind him.

Looking at the rows upon rows of letter boxes, Baekhyun’s eyes found the one belonging to Chanyeol. A white envelope was sticking out slightly, showing how Chanyeol had received mail lately that he hadn’t picked up yet. Maybe Baekhyun could get him to come out by mentioning it to him. He could wait just to catch a glimpse of him.

He slowly turned back, to the other part of the hallway, where he could find the rows of numbers with names and buttons, the one where Chanyeol had left that heart for him on Christmas Eve. Baekhyun disregarded that thought the second it had popped up, but it still left him affected, no matter how brief the memory had been.

He had to take a deep breath before he stepped closer to where he knew he could find his ex-boyfriend’s name now, and he had already lifted his hand to press the button and let Chanyeol know he was there, downstairs, waiting for something, anything, but then he paused.

Because there, right next to the button belonging to Chanyeol’s apartment, was now a perfectly blank piece of paper. A crisp white rectangular piece of paper, void of any ink marks. Chanyeol’s name had been erased, as if it had never been there, and instead Baekhyun stared at nothingness.

An unsettling feeling crept up on him at the sight, Baekhyun noticed it from the way his heart sped up insanely quickly, leaving him breathless as his mind ran a mile a minute. He was panicking on the inside, scared to think of what it could mean that Chanyeol’s name was no longer there, but without the confirmation, Baekhyun couldn’t be sure.

Pressing the button was easier then, now that he had a reason to do so, the feeling more justified. In the meantime he tried to calm himself down some, taking deep breaths to get his heartbeat to slow down enough so it wouldn’t block his hearing. Nevertheless he still strained his ears, hoping for Chanyeol’s usual greeting to bring him out of his worries, but there was nothing but the beeping of the dial tone.

Baekhyun tried again, thinking maybe his ex-boyfriend was simply working in the kitchen or watching TV, meaning he hadn’t heard. Or maybe he was out with Toben, leaving Baekhyun to get worried for no reason at all.

Yeah, that could be it. He could wait for a bit, hoping to see Chanyeol coming home. Because maybe he was at work. Friday was usually his day off, but maybe someone else had fallen ill, meaning he had to go in to help out. That had happened before and it could easily have happened again.

It could be plenty of things, the blank paper didn’t have to mean anything at all. Maybe Chanyeol had been tired of his old name tag, maybe he had simply wanted a new one that didn’t remind him of Baekhyun. He could understand that, could accept the fact that Chanyeol had decided to start over fresh.

Leaning against the wall, Baekhyun did everything in his power to calm himself down, making up a hundred possible theories until he felt calm enough again to straighten himself. He was about to slide down the wall as well, knowing this could be a long wait, when someone came out of the door leading to the stairs.

Baekhyun raised his head in an instant, hoping to see Chanyeol standing there, thinking maybe he had been home after all and had just needed to find the courage to come out and see him. But that really was as unlikely as it had seemed, for it was only a girl Baekhyun hadn’t ever seen before, a stranger.

She looked at him with questioning eyes, taking slow steps as if she was worried he was up to no good. Baekhyun in turn, stood up again and smiled at her friendly, pointing at the wall behind him, “ehm, excuse me, can I ask you a question?” he asked, realising how he was already asking her regardless of what she’d say, “do you perhaps know Park Chanyeol? Tall, handsome and around my age? I- the name tag next to his doorbell is now blank and he’s not answering, so.”

The girl blinked at him and then leaned sideways, as if to look at the tag Baekhyun was referring too. “I think I’ve seen him around,” she said then, sounding a little hesitant, “but I haven’t seen him in a while. Usually though, when they clear the name tag, it means the person moved. Could that be what happened?”

Baekhyun stared at the girl as if she had grown a second head by making such a suggestion, ad he was completely and utterly losing control of himself as the idea started blossoming in his head, “moved? No, no that’s not possible,” he shook his head. Chanyeol couldn’t have moved in such a short time. He couldn’t have. He wouldn’t have. Right?

He wouldn’t have done so without telling Baekhyun, the fallen one was sure of that. The guy knew that even though they had broken up, Baekhyun cared about him. He would have at least let him know. No, it wasn’t possible that Chanyeol had moved away like that. Absolutely not.

“Okay,” the girl answered, sounding even more hesitant now she had run out of ideas, “well then I don’t know? Anyway, I’m really sorry, but I have to get going. Good luck finding him.” She sent him a pitiful smile and then walked off like that, leaving Baekhyun to freak out by himself.

As anxiety washed over him, he got out his phone and dialled Chanyeol’s number without thinking twice about it, something he hadn’t done since he had left the apartment days before. He had known it was pointless back then and he knew it was pointless now, yet he still did it, hoping to find an answer there. The call went to voicemail straight away, leaving Baekhyun even more terrified.

He had run out of options, with Chanyeol not being home and not picking up his phone, what was there left for him to do? How could he calm his restless heart?

“Of course,” he whispered in sudden realisation, seeing now how he could find out whether Chanyeol had really left or not: through his work.

If Chanyeol had left, he would have had to quit his job as well. It seemed highly unlikely to Baekhyun that the guy would be able to do such a thing, which was why he had some hope left that this was all just a misunderstanding. Just a way to make Baekhyun suffer more than he already had.

Chanyeol loved his kids and loved his job, would he really leave it just because of their fight?

Baekhyun ran all the way to the station, hoping he could still remember how to get to the school without getting lost, all the while he kept praying. Praying for god to not leave him now, because Baekhyun could live in a world where he knew Chanyeol was still near him, a world where things could be fixed one day, but if he were to disappear…

There had been moments where he had wished for Chanyeol to have never walked into his life, moments where he had prayed for time to rewind so he could take a different route home that night where Chanyeol had bumped into him, but that had been before he had found out what it was like to love him.

Loving Chanyeol, being with him, it was something that Baekhyun never wanted to move on from. What would happen if Chanyeol was actually gone? What would become of him then, knowing that the person who had turned his life upside down in the best way possible was now gone, possibly forever? He didn’t want to think of that, he really didn’t.

People around him were just walking past him, living their own lives and having their own worries, some with their guardian angel at their side while others did it all by themselves. All of them had their own stories, but none could possibly match what Baekhyun was going through right now, or so he felt.

If only he had had his own angel to protect him, to tell him what was right and what was wrong and to help him with what to do in this situation. He really hoped that his already broken heart wouldn’t get hurt more, that no one would try to rip out the emergency stitches that had been carefully placed to keep him together, but he worried that if he were to hear what he was suspecting to be true, there would be nothing left in his chest to even begin fixing.

After taking a detour, ending up utterly lost and having asked two scared-looking locals how to get to the school, Baekhyun ended up at the front gates just around the end of their lunch break. Kids were disappearing into the school, the playground quickly growing quiet, and Baekhyun followed them inside as if he were one of them.

He remembered very clearly how to get to Chanyeol’s classroom, because their walk there had been quiet and had left Baekhyun aware of where they had been going. For once he was thankful that his stupid brain had been working at the right time, even though the walk there now was even more stressful than it had been back then.

Kids ran past him, almost making him trip over their tiny feet a few times, and he tried to slow down his steps both so he wouldn’t fall, but also because he was dreading the moment he would arrive at the classroom.

“Baekhyun!” he heard, an excited voice greeting him, and a second later he felt someone tapping at his hand. Baekhyun looked down to where the voice had come from, seeing it was Seul Gi, the smart girl from Chanyeol’s group, who was grabbing onto him.

She smiled up at him brightly, her hand tugging at Baekhyun’s as she jumped up excitedly, “you’re back. What are you doing here?” She tipped her head to the side then, staring at him curiously, “Chanyeol ssaem isn’t here today. He never is on Friday.”

Baekhyun forced a smile onto his face as he bent down, getting on eye level with her, and he slowly took her tiny hand in between his own, “he isn’t? Was he there yesterday, then?” he asked, the anticipation of her answer making him nervous. She had been bluntly honest last time, and he knew she would be again now.

Seul Gi nodded, “yes, he was!” she pointed at the wrist of the hand Baekhyun was holding onto, “he gave everyone a bracelet and a card before he said goodbye. Do you like mine? It’s purple!” she wriggled her wrist to show it off, but Baekhyun could’t speak any longer.

The blood had slowly drained from his face as he took in what Seul Gi had so innocently shared with him. Did she mean goodbye for the week? As in ‘goodbye, see you again on Monday’? It seemed unlikely with the gift he had left the class with. So did that mean…?

Baekhyun didn’t know how he managed to get himself to the classroom, but the next moment he found himself with both hands resting on the desk that Chanyeol had occupied the last time he had been there. When there had been stacks of paper, an abundance of coloured pencils and a pile of potatoes.

Now there was none of that, and instead of Chanyeol, another man was seated behind the desk. “Oh, hello, can I help you?” he asked, sending him a smile, something which Baekhyun couldn’t really process.

Behind him he could hear more mentions of his name, another hand tugging at his pants demanding his attention, but he kept his eyes on the guy behind the desk. He wanted nothing more than to grab his tie and pull him closer, across his desk, to yell in his face and demand answers, but none of Baekhyun’s situation was that poor man’s fault. Baekhyun couldn’t blame it on anyone, he could only ask and blame himself for whatever answer he’d receive.

“I’m here- Chanyeol. Where’s Chanyeol ssaem?” he asked, sounding out of breath and like he was about to pass out, and maybe he was.

The man frowned at him and he took so goddamn long to answer that Baekhyun was about to actually reach out and punch him in the face, but then the frown turned into a kind smile, joined by laughter, “Park Chanyeol, you mean?” he asked, as if Baekhyun could be talking about any other Chanyeol.

“I’m sorry, he quit,” the man went on, sounding as if he wasn’t stabbing Baekhyun with that piece of information, “all parents were supposed to get a letter in the mail about it, did you not get one? He had to leave immediately, for personal reasons, so I will be filling in for the rest of the year. It’s nice meeting you, which one of these beautiful children is yours?”

The smile felt wrong, the outstretched hand even more. It was too hot in the room yet too cold at the same time. Everything felt wrong, absolutely everything, and the world felt like it had tilted and now Baekhyun was falling.

The slope he had been on was too steep, making him tumble, and his running grew faster and faster the further down he got, until his legs couldn’t carry him anymore and he fell down, face first. He fell, his mind spinning and heart aching so badly, so so badly.

There was pain everywhere, consuming him like there were tiny monsters eating away at him from the inside out and the outside in. They were everywhere, like ants underneath his skin, and Baekhyun was losing it.

Breathing became impossible as he saw Chanyeol’s face behind closed eyelids, and then, once he was sure that he couldn’t possibly be hurting any more than that, then there was darkness.

Calm, obsolete, numbing darkness.

And Baekhyun himself, gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I- I'm real sorry but like... I really hope y'all won't kill me for the amount of sadness there will be until it eventually gets better. I promise it's not only going to be sadsies!!!   
> Also, prepare for the final 5 chapters to be like +-10k each so we're far from the end of the story. 


	31. Losing it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crying without tears was painful more than anything. It was frustrating too, the incontrollable shudder of his shoulders felt wrong without the stream of tears running down his face, yet he couldn’t stop. It left him unable to fully get out his emotions, like something was holding him back from giving himself fully knowing that if those last shackles fell away…

 

 

Gone.

Baekhyun sat in his secluded little nook, the biggest mug he could find filled to the brim with tea, the curtain closed behind himself.

Chanyeol was gone.

The world outside was loud and bright, a stark contrast to the way Baekhyun felt inside. It was as if his heart had been ripped out, leaving the rest of his body to shrivel until nothing was left of it.

Whereas first love had been warm and soft, now it was black and poisonous, killing Baekhyun slowly but surely, and he knew it too. The worst addiction possibly.

Because he was gone. Gone without a trace, having picked up everything he owned and left with the wind, taking along Baekhyun’s heart with him.

Baekhyun had been numb ever since he found out, still having trouble believing that it was all real and not some twisted dream, but ever since he had first heard how Chanyeol was really gone, there had been more confirmations, up to the point where Baekhyun couldn’t do anything but believe it.

Apparently Baekhyun had collapsed in Chanyeol’s classroom, the news having been too much to take, and when he had woken up from the darkness, a worried-looking Minseok had been there with him. Baekhyun had gone from standing in front of that wooden desk to lying on a bed in the school nurse’s office, and he had no recollection of how he had gotten there.

“You just fell over, they said,” Minseok had told him as he drove Baekhyun home later that day, “one second you were standing there and the next you were on the floor. You had a group of worried kids surrounding you and yelling your name, some even cried in distress, and then another teacher came to help carry you to the nurse’s office.”

Baekhyun had listened to it while he stared out of the window, still numb and unable to speak. He hadn’t said anything at all since the moment he had opened his eyes again, but Minseok hadn’t pressured him to. The teacher had informed his best friend of what Baekhyun had come for, and so Minseok already knew what had happened.

The fact that multiple teachers had now confirmed Chanyeol’s leave wasn’t the only confirmation Baekhyun got. It wasn’t the only way he knew that his ex-boyfriend was doing everything in his power to cut him out of his life, because when Minseok had tried calling Chanyeol, pissed off with him for having done such a thing to Baekhyun, it became clear that the phone number he had dialled was no longer in use.

Chanyeol had changed his number, wiped out another trace of his existence like he had never been there in the first place. Like he had only been a figment of Baekhyun’s imagination, even though his presence could still be felt all around him.

And as if Baekhyun hadn’t been hurting enough already, having taken blow after blow after blow for days now, Chanyeol had dealt his final cards and given the hardest kick in the teeth he could have by leaving a white envelope with Baekhyun’s name on it in his letter box.

Minseok had been with him when he had opened it and pulled out the letter to read what it was he had to say for himself. He had been there to cry with Baekhyun, to yell and scream, cursing with profanities the fallen one had never heard him use. The letter had left his best friend angry, but for him it had been the final gush of wind, blowing out the tiniest of flames that had still been keeping him warm inside.

And now Baekhyun sat in his windowsill, trying to warm his frozen fingers by pressing them into the ceramic of the mug, wrapped in a blanket and secluded from the world as Minseok talked to Kyungsoo on the phone in his bedroom. He didn’t want to think about what they were discussing, it definitely had to do with what they should do next to fix thing, but that would be a pointless conversation.

Because there was no next for Baekhyun. He was still breathing but he felt far from alive. It was worse than falling from heaven, he had thought so before already, but right now he was certain. Feeling like someone had pushed his lungs into a box way too small to fit them, making them expand around the gaping hole in his chest on every inhale, as if there was anything left there, it was torturous.

Unlike back when he had fallen, when he had turned into a demon, Baekhyun had no outlet for his pain now. He had no powers he could use, was no longer masochistic and looking for worse ways to hurt himself either. He didn’t long for sex with some stranger, didn’t want to drink until he couldn’t remember, because it wouldn’t fill anything. Now, instead of an aching pain that he could forget about by distracting himself, there was nothing left of him.

He wished he could still cry, but he had used up all of his tears. Simply existing, unfeeling and immovable, it was like being a prisoner in your own body. There was no way out, nothing to shield him from the fire, and all Baekhyun could really do was stay still so the poison wouldn’t spread as fast as it could, even though that too was useless.

Where would he go now? What was the point of anything now? Baekhyun really didn’t know. Whenever he licked his lips he could still taste Chanyeol, whenever he closed his eyes he could only hear him call out his name, could only see Chanyeol’s scratchy handwriting projected on the darkness of his eyelids.

Every time he blinked he was reminded, the letter a constant mantra in his head no matter how he tried to get it out. By now he had read it so often that he could repeat it without any difficulty, didn’t have to look at the paper anymore in order to remember what it said. It was branded into his brain, forever a part of him like an ugly scar, except it would never be physically visible.

Was this what Chanyeol had meant when he had said that Jaehyun had hurt him emotionally too? Was Chanyeol walking around with scars similar to the one he had brought Baekhyun? Was what Chanyeol had done to him in any way comparable to what Baekhyun, to what Jaehyun, had done to him?

He forced himself to sip from his tea, feeling the hot water burn his throat on the way down, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care or flinch at it whatsoever. In fact, he did it again, relieved to at least feel something, no matter if it was more pain. He was used to it by now, could hardly remember what a smile felt like, it had been so long.

_‘Baekhyun,_

_I’m sorry for how I dragged you along in this mess with me. I’m sorry for how I played you, for how I couldn’t be what you wanted me to be, and I’m sorry for what I’m about to do to you now.’_

Baekhyun squeezed his eyes shut so tightly that he felt a headache come up from the way his forehead was wrinkled, muscles tense. He swallowed hard against the scorching fire in his throat, choking back the bile that had been threatening to come up, and he let out the tiniest of whimpers at the feeling.

_‘I’m leaving Seoul. I can’t be here anymore and I shouldn’t have come here in the first place. It has wrecked me, this life has wrecked me, and I need to get out of here so I can breathe again._

_I regret stopping you on the streets and I regret begging you to let me back in. I wish I could say it was different, but it isn’t. I should have run out the night you told me you weren’t him, but I was an asshole hoping for more than I deserved.’_

The shame that dripped from Chanyeol’s words, the misery that Baekhyun felt in return, it had been the most awful thing about this all. Not the fact that they were over, but the fact that Chanyeol regretted it. To see how Chanyeol wanted to wipe away the past few months, it made Baekhyun feel so detached from reality. It made him realise how he had been living a lie, just like Chanyeol had been, but he was on the losing end.

_‘You became collateral damage in what went wrong between Jaehyun and me, and it’s unfair to you how I kept stringing you along. You captivated me, yet you couldn’t hold me down. Your mesmerizing smile, your hypnotising kiss, it craved it but it wore off every time and left me with the worst withdrawal symptoms I’ve ever had. But I need to get clean, I can’t keep relapsing.’_

In the end Baekhyun had been nothing but a better version of the man that had ruined him, and Chanyeol had been too lost in his fairy tale to see that things weren’t what he had dreamed them up to be. He had unjustly used Baekhyun to better himself, and by doing so he had stolen whatever liveliness and brightness the fallen one had still had after everything he had been through himself.

_‘You’re no good for me, Baekhyun. I couldn’t quit you until now and I’m sorry for that, I’m sorry because I know it made you fall in love with me and I know I can’t return those feelings. So I’m doing us both a favour by leaving now, before this turns into more of a mess. Or before I relapse again._

_Don’t come looking for me, I don’t want to see you again. It is better this way, trust me._

_You deserve more than me, know that._

_Chanyeol’_

Crying without tears was painful more than anything. It was frustrating too, the incontrollable shudder of his shoulders felt wrong without the stream of tears running down his face, yet he couldn’t stop. It left him unable to fully get out his emotions, like something was holding him back from giving himself fully knowing that if those last shackles fell away…

Baekhyun set down his mug so he could wrap both of his arms around his legs, making himself small in the hope that it would stop his body from shivering. However, it didn’t bring him the warmth he had hoped for, for he still felt icy cold even with his cheek pressed against the fabric of his soft sweatpants.

He went still eventually, his shoulders stopping their violent shaking right before he heard Minseok’s voice come closer to him, “yeah, okay. I’ll call you later, okay? Thank you, Soo, you’re the best.” He tried to speak softly, as if he didn’t want Baekhyun to catch it all, but it wasn’t like it mattered whether he’d hear their ‘I love you’ or not. Nothing could make him feel worse now. Absolutely nothing.

Minseok opened the curtain that held Baekhyun in his own little world only seconds later, looking down at Baekhyun’s small, fragile form as if he hadn’t expected to find him like that. He bent down so he could look at him better and Baekhyun didn’t avoid the eye contact, had nothing left to hide. He knew that whatever his best friend would see in his eyes wouldn’t be pretty.

The pity that flashed across Minseok’s face didn’t surprise him either, but he didn’t really respond to it, not even when his best friend sighed tiredly and brought out a choked up, “oh, Baekhyun,” before he tugged his friend into his arms and against his chest.

Baekhyun felt the burning desire to cry again, but there were still no tears and so he bit it back. He allowed himself to fall apart in Minseok’s arms, though, knowing that he had someone there to keep him together enough so he wouldn’t start losing pieces of himself in the process. It was the only blessing Baekhyun had left, the only thing he could hold onto right now, and he was forevermore indebted to Minseok.

“I will have to leave for a little bit. I need to open up the bar and hand the keys over to Jongin. Kyungsoo will be helping out today so I can come back to you as soon as everything is ready,” he promised, squeezing Baekhyun in his arms tightly.

The idea of being left alone right now caused Baekhyun to panic, his body going rigid in Minseok’s hold, and his best friend noticed it too. He squeezed a little tighter, pulling him back together that way, and he murmured, “don’t worry, I’m not leaving you here alone. I called in some help.”

He sat back then, leaving Baekhyun feeling less composed than he had done before, but this way Baekhyun could look over his shoulder and see the person behind him. A few feet away stood Tae-ho, staring at him with a blank face and his mouth twisted into something ugly. He looked like he didn’t understand all that was happening, like he didn’t know how to behave in a situation like this, but he still cleared his throat and stepped closer, “hi, Baek.”

Seeing Tae-ho didn’t make him feel the anger he had expected to feel. He had lost the resentment he had felt towards his friend soon after he had realised that it hadn’t really been his fault that the truth had come out, but with how things had ended up now, he had anticipated to still feel like the demon was partly responsible for it.

He had taken responsibility for his own lies, none of those had been Tae-ho’s fault, but the whole downfall had started with him. If Tae-ho hadn’t spilled his secret, maybe Baekhyun could have built up something with Chanyeol before he would have come clean himself. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything in the end, but he could never be sure of that.

However, he felt none of that towards his friend. Sure, he was an ass, but he was a demon for a reason. At the end of the day it was between him and Chanyeol, Tae-ho had nothing to do with them. It were him and Chanyeol who had ruined their relationship, both of them having lied.

Tae-ho was also the one who had been helping Baekhyun, the one who had led him to Minsu, and he couldn’t forget about that. It was a clear sign that even though Tae-ho had his darker sides, he was still the guy Baekhyun had spent decades with, having fun and fucking each other over. They wanted nothing but the best for each other.

Right now, more than anything, Baekhyun was glad he at least wouldn’t have to be alone, and so he nodded at Tae-ho and replied with a faint, “hi.” He spun sideways, his legs dangling out of the windowsill so he could face Minseok. His best friend was looking at him with this apologetic look, as if he hated himself for having to leave him, and Baekhyun didn’t want him to feel guilty.

He slowly brushed Minseok’s hair out of his face, took in how tired he looked, and forced himself to smile. His fingers traced the slight stubble of his jaw, and for a second he felt like some warmth had returned to him, “go home, Minseok,” his voice was barely a whisper, but it was loud enough to be heard, “you’ve done so much for me already, you need to take a break.”

Minseok started shaking his head at him, protesting like the good friend he was, and Baekhyun chuckled slightly, “really, I’m fine. I have Tae-ho now.” He knew those words would be anything but a consolation to Minseok though, and so Baekhyun kept on going, “I’ve seen it all. Nothing more can hurt me, so go home, Minseok. Go see Kyungsoo, hug him and tell him you love him. Kiss him and hold on, hold on to him tight.”

His friend was blinking rapidly and Baekhyun could tell there were tears there. Tears for him, because Minseok knew how much love Baekhyun had had to give, and to see him with a broken spirit, it hurt him too. Baekhyun only hoped he would take from this all that love couldn’t be taken for granted. He hoped it would make Minseok and Kyungsoo stronger, that it made them realise how they never wanted to end things like that.

“You’ll be okay, Baek,” Minseok’s voice was small and his eyes were filled with the same burning passion that had been there as they had read Chanyeol’s letter. He knew his friend would do anything to get him to be okay, and Baekhyun had all the faith in the world that he would be again one day, but that day was far from today. “Don’t do anything stupid or I’ll kill you.”

Baekhyun forced another smile, pushing at Minseok’s shoulder as he did, as if to get him to move faster. His friend seemed to doubt himself for a moment longer, but in the end the thought of seeing Kyungsoo again was what made him get up, “I will be calling you every hour. You best answer if you don’t want me to get back here in an instant.”

“Yes, mom,” Baekhyun promised with a sigh, waving his hand at Minseok to make him walk faster, and he only dropped the smile when his friend finally closed the front door behind himself. It was tiring, to fake having such energy, and the second Minseok was gone he dropped his head so he could focus on breathing.

Tae-ho was by his side at once, falling to his knees in front of him, but he didn’t touch Baekhyun or say anything at all, as if he was scared of doing so. Chances were he really didn’t know what to do about this. Baekhyun hadn’t ever broken down back in hell. He had been strong and powerful, any breaking down would have happened behind closed doors. It was the first time Tae-ho got to see him this frail.

Baekhyun sat leaned over for a while, giving himself time to breathe until it felt like his lungs had grown a bit larger again, allowing more oxygen to flow in. Then, feeling more collected, he raised his head to look at his friend, expecting to see pity there like with Minseok, but it wasn’t there.

Unlike his best friend, Tae-ho looked tranquil and impassive, like he didn’t feel sorry for Baekhyun at all, which made the fallen one want to get defensive, even if his friend hadn’t said anything whatsoever so far.

He took a deep breath and averted his eyes, mumbling a quiet, “what?” in order to get him to speak up about what was on his mind.

Tae-ho hummed, placing his hands on his own thighs as he shrugged and told Baekhyun, “honestly? You look horrible. It’s like- I don’t even recognise you anymore, Baekhyun.” His voice turned soft then, as if that was in fact a reason to worry. Baekhyun hadn’t been like his old self before either, not the version Tae-ho had known, so for him to say he didn’t recognise him anymore, it meant things were really bad. It wasn’t like Baekhyun didn’t know that, though.

“Thanks,” he replied, not managing to make it sound as biting as he had wanted it to, “I don’t expect you to understand, so we don’t have to talk about it, okay?” he turned his upper body in order to pick up his mug again, giving himself a reason to look away which made him miss the flash of sadness that passed on Tae-ho’s face.

An uncomfortable silence lingered between them as Baekhyun drank from his tea, and he could see from the corner of his eyes that his friend had balled his hands into fists. Baekhyun didn’t look at him, knew it was only a matter of time before Tae-ho would snap. The way in which he did was unpredicted, however.

“Did you forget that I wanted you to be mine one day?” Tae-ho asked, sounding unaffected by Baekhyun’s words as his voice was surprisingly gentle, “that I would have been fine just having you and _only_ you, in my life? Because apparently you don’t remember how it hurt when you left, that or you never even realised.”

Baekhyun didn’t want to remember, didn’t want to think about it being possible he had hurt Tae-ho the same way Chanyeol had hurt him, because he was certain it couldn’t be compared. Tae-ho hadn’t loved him, not really. He had enjoyed being with Baekhyun, they had had their fun, but it hadn’t been love, on neither side. It wasn’t fair of him to blame him like that.

“Are you here to make me feel better, or worse?” Baekhyun asked as he forced his eyes up to Tae-ho’s, who stared back at him in disbelief.

“I wasn’t- I was only trying to show you that I _do_ understand. And it makes me even angrier at him, because I know what he’s throwing aside by letting you go,” Tae-ho scoffed, “he’s the biggest goddamn idiot I have ever seen, and I’ve seen quite a few. He doesn’t deserve you, Baekhyun, not one bit.”

Baekhyun hated this, hated how even though he knew Tae-ho was only trying to make him feel better he couldn’t help but defend Chanyeol. Because Chanyeol had his heart, Chanyeol had his love, now and forever, and he couldn’t talk badly about him even if the guy would have put an actual gun to Baekhyun’s head.

“He just- it’s not his fault,” he argued quietly, “if I had had a different body, things would have been different, then he could have-,“ Baekhyun stopped then, remembering how in his letter Chanyeol had talked about how he couldn’t return Baekhyun’s feelings. Was that only because he looked like Jaehyun, or because he just couldn’t love who Baekhyun was?

“Baek?” Tae-ho asked, sounding concerned, and it wasn’t until he felt Tae-ho’s hands on his face, thumbing away the tears, that he realised he was crying. This time his shoulders weren’t shuddering as he cried, the tears came silently, and Tae-ho wiped them all away no matter how many of them came, “hey, it’s okay.”

When Baekhyun didn’t speak, only sat there limply, his friend sucked his lower lip between his teeth and looked him up and down. Baekhyun was sure he looked like a weak excuse of a human being, someone dreading the life they had been blessed with, but no matter how he wished he could fix himself, he couldn’t.

Not knowing what else to do, Tae-ho got up and leaned in closer. He got a hand underneath Baekhyun’s knees as he wrapped the other around his waist, right under his arms, and he lifted him up that way. Baekhyun’s body curled in on itself, rolling against Tae-ho’s chest to accommodate, and with no strength left to fight it, he allowed himself to be carried to his bedroom.

He was placed on his bed very carefully, as if he could actually break, and Tae-ho lay down next to him once he had retrieved his arms. Nevertheless, Baekhyun didn’t let them get far away from him, pulling one across his hips as he turned on his side, face pressed to his ex-lover’s shoulder. He longed for warmth, longed to feel something again.

Tae-ho was selfish enough not to deny himself of Baekhyun’s touch, and as the fallen one settled on the mattress, he placed his free hand over the one Baekhyun had rested on his chest. He held it there, locking the shorter down with him and letting him know he was there.

Baekhyun fit right under his chin, the nook being perfect to hide his face against, and Tae-ho simply let him. He would always let him, Baekhyun knew. The way he had cared for Chanyeol, Tae-ho cared for him, love or not. Baekhyun decided no longer to judge.

He felt a kiss being pressed to the crown of his head, felt Tae-ho exhale against his hair, and although he was now enveloped in literal warmth, that of the body against him, he still felt cold. Cold as Tae-ho’s fingers entwined with his, cold as their legs tangled underneath the sheets, freezing at the mention of his name.

“Sleep, Baekhyun,” Tae-ho murmured, “everything will be alright.” He pressed more kisses to Baekhyun’s head as he talked, “I’ll get you to heaven, I promise. We have a plan and it will work. You’ll get back your grace, okay? Just don’t cry no more.”

The mention of Baekhyun getting his grace back did nothing to calm him, all it did was make him think more, but he tried to keep it in and not worry Tae-ho more with it. And so he did as he was ordered, closing his eyes and grabbing a hold of his friend’s shirt, balling it into his fist as he let the exhaustion pull him under into a hell full of nightmares.

~

Eventually, Baekhyun had to get back to work sometime. He couldn’t stay secluded in his own little world, hiding away from everything - with the exception of Minseok or Tae-ho, who he took shelter with. Life didn’t work like that, it wouldn’t stop turning just because Baekhyun’s life had, and Baekhyun was very much aware of how he had already been cut enough slack by everyone around him.

They had been so patient with him for days, Minseok especially, but apart from being his best friend he was also Baekhyun’s boss. And right now, with Baekhyun at home, his friend was struggling to keep everything at the bar running the way it used to when Baekhyun actually went to work.

And so Baekhyun found himself getting ready, dressed in his darkest clothes and putting on the thickest layer of make-up he had likely ever worn, all while telling himself that everything would be okay.

It was the eight day after the break-up and Baekhyun was glad he had passed the first week mark, hoping that the worst was over by now. However, worst over or not, Baekhyun would need to adjust to what his life was like again now, and he would need a healthy amount of distraction to start fixing himself.

Going back to the bar would be anything but easy, but he had no choice. Minseok was doing so much for him, spending every spare moment he had with him, and Baekhyun wasn’t doing anything to pay him in return. It was why he would go back to work, plaster on his best smile and get through his shift even if he was still feeling empty inside.

Baekhyun stood at his front door for a while once he was finally ready, wrapped up in his coat and scarf in preparation to face the cold, and with closed eyes he tried to discard every bad thought that had been roaming through his head for the past few days. He pushed them all out, hoping to leave them behind his locked front door while he was at work, even though they would surely jump him again once he’d get back.

Then, entirely unconvinced it had worked at all, he walked out and closed the door behind him. He forced his shoulders up, his back to straighten as he walked, knowing that even pretending to be strong could make him hold on for longer. He had faked himself through many things, had taken on a very different personality back in hell, so what could make him unable to do so now?

Maybe it was the fact that love hurt much more than he had expected it to. Perhaps it was because his fall had hurt, but it had been a temporary pain, one that had slowly faded within days’ time. But love, the heartache, it still left his lungs feeling constricted, still made him sluggish and miserable. One moment he felt nothing at all and the second too much at once. Even now it was as tiring as it had been on day one, and it would be for ast least a while longer.

But he walked. Baekhyun was outside for the first time in days, breathing in the crisp, biting air. It was nice, woke up his body too, and he walked a little faster knowing he’d be warm again soon. Luckily at least that had returned. Slowly but surely, over the past few days, the warmth had come back to him.

Minseok was there for him every morning. He had done some of the grocery shopping and had made Baekhyun eat, always making sure his basic needs were covered. Then, at night, Tae-ho would be there to keep him company and help him fall asleep. Baekhyun would end up in his arms every time, the warmth of his body and the soft whispering lulling him into unconsciousness far after midnight. He wouldn’t sleep much even with his company, but it was more than he would have gotten on his own. It was reassuring, because he knew that once he’d get back from work later, Tae-ho would be there waiting for him.

Baekhyun hadn’t thought he’d ever become as reliant on the demon as he was, but at the same time he was glad that Tae-ho was letting him. It was him repaying Baekhyun for all the fallen one had done for him before, back in hell, but he tried not to think of it like that too much.

“Baekhyun!” Minseok smiled as he saw him come in. He was in the back, working on the orders, which meant that it was likely that the bar wasn’t very busy right now. “You’re here,” he stated, as if he couldn’t believe it, even though Baekhyun had told him he’d come to work today.

Baekhyun nodded while he started taking off his scarf, which he put away in his locker as he replied, “I am. The snow didn’t freeze me to death on my way here.” He smiled softly, glad it was a real one rather than faked, and he turned back to his best friend as he unzipped his coat next, “Jongin in the front?”

Minseok nodded as he tapped his fingers across the calculator on his desk, “yes. It’s a good day to get back at it. Nothing too busy, mostly the regulars out there. Just give it a shot, if it’s too much then you better let me know, yeah?” He sounded rather threatening, as if he worried Baekhyun wouldn’t do so, and to be honest, he was right to think so.

But Baekhyun wasn’t going to admit to that. He would fake his way through the night if he had to, but he had to make up for everything he had put his friend through. If he couldn’t fix himself, he’d have to try and fix whatever else he could and right now that was Minseok. He was doing this only for Minseok.

“Of course I will,” Baekhyun lied through his teeth, showing his friend another smile as he picked up his apron and started tying it around his waist, “I’ll be fine, though. I’ve been through worse and always ended up back on my feet. I did once you hired me, remember?”

“Oh please,” Minseok huffed at his comment and started laughing at the memory that was now evidently coming back to him, one of an inexperienced and dirty-looking Baekhyun, “you cut your hand in the first half an hour of your first shift and ended up crying in the staff room halfway through the night because you felt so out of place and like you couldn’t be of any use to me.”

His best friend shook his head at him, drawing a genuine smile from Baekhyun this time as he allowed himself to think back to that moment as well. Minseok went on embarrassing him, too, “honestly, it was weird knowing you had spent so long living as a demon when I saw that. I thought you’d be tough and could stand your guard, yet there you were crying like a little baby.”

Baekhyun rolled his eyes, fondly thinking back to that night as one where his life had changed for the better, “yeah, yeah. You know that demonic side came back rather quickly, it was just that I remembered what it was like being homeless all the while I stood behind the bar and I didn’t want fuck up on my first night by letting my foul mouth take over.”

Minseok watched him, lips still parted with the corners raised in a grin, and he seemed to realise how Baekhyun didn’t look as depressed now that they were reliving old memories, memories of a time long gone, where things had been better.

Something akin to hope flashed in his eyes, which made Baekhyun close in on himself instantly. Hope was a dangerous thing to have, especially when it came to love, and he didn’t want Minseok to unnecessarily get his hopes up. Things were still too fresh for that, Baekhyun’s bruises still hurt and he wasn’t anywhere near healing either.

“Alright, I should go help Jongin then,” Baekhyun saluted his boss and then turned away, “if you need anything, we’ll be in the front, Mister Kim.” He knew Minseok hated being called that, mostly because it made him feel old when Baekhyun said it, considering they were friends more than anything, but with Jongin there he would be using the proper formal language required.

“I will kick your ass if you call me that one more time,” Minseok grumbled, talking to Baekhyun’s back as the fallen one walked away from him. In turn, Baekhyun let out a boisterous laugh to show he knew Minseok was only teasing him with it, and he waved a hand over his shoulder before he pushed through the door to get to the bar.

Once that door closed behind him, leaving Minseok and Baekhyun separated, the easy atmosphere died down so fast that it almost left him spinning dizzily. Looking at the bar and the people behind it waiting to be served, it instantly pulled Baekhyun back in time, to the moment where Tae-ho had said too much, having pushed the tiniest snowball down a hill, where both him and Chanyeol had made it grow and grow until it had knocked both of them over.

It took him a moment to steady himself and when he had, he slowly walked up to the exact spot where he had stood when that had happened, wondering if maybe it would make him feel anything. Hoping maybe it would catapult him back in actual time to put him back on that spot on the night things had gone wrong.

There was no such thing. Baekhyun only felt regret as he picked up his cocktail shaker, remembering how it had fallen to his feet as a great representation of what mess he had made of it all. Tonight he wasn’t going to drop it. Tonight he was going to stand tall, do his job, and then go back home to let it all out.

Back in the safety of his apartment, back where Tae-ho would keep him company in the darkness he felt within his heart, that was where he could be weak. Here, in front of Jongin and Minseok, of Nam-gi and his friends, in front of the rest of the world, he had to stay strong.

“Hi Baekhyun,” Jongin told him as he had finished serving the group in front of him, turning to the fallen one as he dried his hands on a towel, “good to see you’re back. People have been asking about you.” He smiled, such a Jongin smile too, and Baekhyun couldn’t help feel a little touched.

He was sure his colleague was aware of why Baekhyun hadn’t been at work, yet he didn’t ask or call him out on it, and now Baekhyun owed him. “Thank you,” he replied, “I’m sorry for making you work so many hours. I hope Nam-gi didn’t bother you too much.”

Jongin turned his head to look towards where the asshole was seated, and when he realised who it was Baekhyun was talking about he scoffed, “him? Oh, he’s fine. I reminded him once of how he should know that in this bar, his balls are never safe, and he kind of turned pale and never bothered me again.”

Baekhyun had to hold back his laughter, lips pursing together as he imagined the look on Nam-gi’s face as Jongin told him that. Then he patted the younger’s arm and nodded at him as he told him, “well done. You are worthy of working here, indeed.”

“Well, I have two amazing role models to teach me how to deal with these things,” Jongin shrugged and turned with him as Baekhyun walked past to get some ice into his shaker. He was glad about it too, because the fact that Jongin was complimenting him made him feel shy, and by getting to work he could avoid eye contact.

“If that’s true then catch yourself a shaker. I’ll show you how to make a few drinks,” he told the guy, knowing he wasn’t experienced when it came to the cocktails. He didn’t say it was for his own well-being, how teaching him would take Baekhyun’s mind off of things, but he was glad Jongin didn’t ask any questions. He only went to fetch a shaker before he joined Baekhyun at his side, ready to learn from the master himself.

~

Once Baekhyun’s shift was over and he walked back into the staffroom to get his stuff, he realised how much he actually didn’t want work to end already. It turned out it had been a good distraction indeed, with him mostly helping Jongin pick up some tricks when they weren’t busy serving people.

It had gotten a bit busier than expected, but Baekhyun was glad because it had made him focused on doing his job. It made it that Baekhyun felt fine, a little more like his old self, for a little while. The spell would wear off eventually though, and it lasted until he had hugged Minseok goodbye for the night.

His friend was of course staying behind to do more work, Baekhyun didn’t know better than that, and he was to go home alone as usual. He had just stepped outside into the dark alley behind the bar, instantly feeling the stinging cold against his warm cheeks, when he crashed back down to earth.

He stood there, realising that even though Minseok was staying behind as usual, there was nothing usual about the rest of his night. Normally on Wednesday’s he’d rush to Chanyeol’s place after work to spend some time together before either they’d fall asleep together, or Baekhyun would leave to go back home.

But Chanyeol was gone now, and so Baekhyun didn’t have to take a detour in order to stop by for some evening cuddles and a goodnight kiss. Chanyeol was gone and Baekhyun had no other place to run to than his own apartment, the only safe haven he had left.

Rather than give himself time to think about it all, Baekhyun started walking, knowing that he had to get home before he could collapse. Because the thing with his sudden breakdowns, ones that came quite frequently still, was that they never warned him about how bad they’d turn out to be.

It could be something minor, simply leaving him in tears feeling sad about everything, but it could also make him lose strength in his whole body, leaving him unable to move for hours on end as he cried out the heartache.

The last thing he wanted was to experience the latter while out on the streets, and so he hurried, speeding up his walk into a half-jog from time to time, enough to be a little faster but not enough to run out of breath or draw any unwanted attention to himself.

However, in his haste to get back to where he could stop holding himself together, he forgot to take the different route back home. Instead of going around the block like he had initially planned, he had taken the one he had always walked before, the one which led him right past the place where Chanyeol had been sitting and waiting for him for days back when they had first met. Right past the place where they had bumped into each other, too.

Baekhyun hadn’t noticed it until he was already there, on that corner where Chanyeol had sat with his flyers, waiting for Jaehyun to walk by and spot him. He stopped there, his feet suddenly glued to the ground as they refused to take another step. His body swayed as it had expected to keep going, while his head turned to look at the empty space of wall where everything had changed.  

Someone groaned at him, having bumped into his shoulder after Baekhyun had stopped so abruptly, but it didn’t make him feel anything. His eyes were stuck on the piece of wall, the same wall he had pushed Chanyeol up against and the same one he had been trapped against as Chanyeol had confirmed he was Jaehyun, or at least the guy’s body.

His breathing was strained as he remembered that day, how desperately he had looked for the flyer in the trashbags in the back of the bar. If only Minseok had actually thrown it out, then maybe he would be living a completely different life right now. Sure, he wouldn’t have found his first love, but he wouldn’t have gotten this hurt either.

Baekhyun’s feet dragged him to that wall, his hands reaching out to touch it, but feeling the brick against his fingertips did nothing for him. He didn’t feel any different, neither good nor bad. All it did was make him wonder how long it would take for all traces of Chanyeol to be erased from his life. If they’d ever really be.

With his back turned to the bricks, Baekhyun watched people walk by for a while. Some were running past in a rush while others walked together with a friend or lover, laughing and joking around. There was such a mix of different people, all of them close enough to touch, but everyone was going their own way. No one bumped into each other, no paths crossing each other. Then why had he and Chanyeol been different? Why had their paths crossed?

Baekhyun sighed as he closed his eyes to everything, hearing nothing but the noise of life around him, and instead he thought of what Tae-ho had told him.

_“We’re ready, Baek. Say the word and we’ll get your innocence proven. Minsu’s ready too, now it’s up to you to decide how you want this to go. It’s up to you to think of what you want to say to them once we get them to listen.”_

Thinking of meeting with angels, of having to explain himself in order to give both Minjae and himself the peace they deserved, it made him feel anxious inside. Because he knew that if things would go well, if they would believe him, they would offer him a choice: the chance to return to heaven or to let go once and for all.

Did he want to go back to the family that didn’t care for him, back to being in the position of caring for someone other than himself and devoting his time to them? The idea wasn’t very appealing, especially not now that Baekhyun was so used to being a human, but there were a few things that made him reconsider it regardless of his own preference.

For one, as much as he loved his best friends, he saw how he was a burden to them. Minseok and Kyungsoo had been living together so peacefully until Baekhyun had come along, and especially now that Chanyeol was gone, he was nothing but an inconvenience. They made him happy, sure, but what did he do for them? In which way was he special to them at all?

Baekhyun shook his head, trying to get the thoughts away, because once he’d let them in they would be toxic. They’d eat away at his last composure, make him forget any rational thought he had ever had before, and he could make some very stupid decisions then. But it was hard, really hard, not to think of how he was the unwanted lump growing on everyone around him.

He couldn’t even do his job properly. He was the selfish friend who only thought of himself and he more resembled a baby needing to be taken care of than an actual grown up with the strength to deal with adult responsibilities.

Besides, Tae-ho had been living without Baekhyun for a year before they met up again, he knew what it was like to be without him, and so he wouldn’t miss the fallen one either. All Baekhyun had done was give him more work with the whole Minjae case, but once this was over he would move up to the higher ranks and any memory of Baekhyun would disappear. He’d have the whole underworld at his feet, all wanting to either be him or be with him, and he’d get over Baekhyun then.

In the end he felt replacable. For a while he could bring others a smile, could be an enrichment to their lives, but sooner or later he’d turn into a leech, draining them bit by bit. Maybe it was a sign that Baekhyun wasn’t meant to be human after all. He had been born an angel for a reason, maybe he shouldn’t have tried to change his fate.

Maybe taking care of others without giving his own heart room to desire was the only way he could be good to others. Forgetting himself, forgetting who ‘Baekhyun’ really was, in order to regain some balance in the world. Was that the way to go? Had Chanyeol leaving him been meant as a clue to figure out this all, that he didn’t belong in this world? The thought was saddening.

His heart was aching again, but this time not because of Chanyeol. It was aching because he had lost faith in himself, had let himself down along with everyone else, all when he had been trying so hard. Baekhyun had been trying to make it work, this life stuck in Jaehyun’s body, but maybe it was time to throw in the towel and surrender. To admit he had failed and to take this chance given to him.

But he wanted so badly to be wrong about it. He didn’t want to think he had failed, didn’t want to think this had been a mistake, because he had known such happiness in his time on earth. It hadn’t been long, but for a short while he had lived on top of the world. For a little while he had been the king, but now his throne had collapsed and he had been stripped of all of that. What was left was nothing but a weak excuse of a human being.  

Baekhyun started running, criss-crossing through the crowds of people, knowing they would all part for him. No one wanted to cross paths with him, no one wanted to bump into him and be forced to meet the madman they saw in front of them. He understood and was glad he couldn’t stop his legs from moving anyway, that way none of that would happen. They had nothing to fear.  

He had started falling apart again, the cheap thread that had been keeping him together had snapped once more, and he had to get home before the pieces had scattered all around him. He needed to get home, right now, and so he ran. He ran until he was out of breath and close to screaming his lungs out.

The stairs proved difficult this way, his mind too jumbled for him to see the steps clearly and so he fell a few times, hitting his shins against the concrete, but eventually he got there. The path to his front door had never felt this long, and Baekhyun held on to the walls as he guided himself to where he had to be.

Then, when he got there, he fished out his key, which fell to the ground when he tried to get it in the lock. Feeling his shoulders drag down to the floor too, Baekhyun cried out in frustration as he fell to his knees to pick it up, his fingers trembling so much that he was struggling with the simple task.

He sat there, giving up once more, with his body caving in on itself and his eyes falling shut as all the energy in his body left him at once. It completely drained him, as if his soul just left his body, and he felt so tired. So tired and so disappointed. Why couldn’t he do better? Why couldn’t he _be_ better?

He sat, one hand on top of the keys, his forehead about to rest against the wood of his front door, but then it opened, leaving him leaning against air. Baekhyun didn’t actually have to look up who it was because there could only be one. He wasn’t surprised by the arms that lifted him up either. It wasn’t the first time Tae-ho had to carry him, and by now Baekhyun was so used to it that his body moved on its own accord to help make it easier.

The key still in hand, Baekhyun wrapped his arms around Tae-ho’s neck and pressed his face to the demon’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he cried, sounding pained as he wished for a way to make clear how he really felt inside. He knew Tae-ho wouldn’t understand, not now at least, and it only made him cry harder.

“For what, you stupid idiot?” Tae-ho asked, actually sounding amused for some reason, as if he wasn’t carrying a mess in his arms, “for me having to carry you? That’s okay, I’m strong enough, no need to worry about me.” He took Baekhyun with him to the bedroom straight away, this having become a regular occurance by now and so he didn’t have to ask.

“Or is it because of how I get to see the weaker you now and you hate it?” he added, making a fair point, but it wasn’t why Baekhyun was apologising. It had nothing to do with his own emotions at all. He rolled out of Tae-ho’s arms as the guy bent over with one knee dipping into Baekhyun’s mattress, knowing exactly what was expected of him by now.

Baekhyun shook his head as he lay on his back, but he didn’t explain. It wasn’t like he could even if he wanted to, because Tae-ho would only argue with him. His friend would get it at a later time, when he had moved on from this all, when Baekhyun was no longer around and he had moved on from loving him. For now he’d just let it be.

“Tell me what happened,” Tae-ho ordered as he sat himself down next to Baekhyun, sensing how he wasn’t going to talk about his apology anymore, and as he waited for an answer he started unbuttoning the fallen one’s blouse. His fingers worked swiftly, expertly, to get the buttons open, reveiling more of Baekhyun’s slightly too skinny form, “was it something at work?”

Baekhyun shook his head as his eyes fell shut, a sigh releasing itself from deep within his chest, and he wished he could explain everything but there were no words he could use to properly describe it. “Not really. I just- I walked by the spot where Chanyeol-“ he paused, “I couldn’t stop thinking about everything. About him, about heaven, about myself.”

Tae-ho sat back, his hands coming to a stop, and Baekhyun knew he was looking down at him. He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to see any judgement even though it was likely not even there to begin with. His friend had been anything but mean about this all, he had been surprisingly soft in fact, and now wasn’t an exception either.

“It will be okay, Baekhyun,” Tae-ho promised him, a promise he couldn’t make but he tried to anyway, “it won’t seem that way right now, but it will be. You’re beautiful, you’re kind, and you will love again.”

Two hands cupped Baekhyun’s cheeks, forcing his eyes to open that way, and as he looked up at his friend he could see the frustration and emotion in the darkness of his pupils. He tried to open his mouth, but Tae-ho shook his head to tell him not to, “don’t even dare tell me I’m wrong. Because you want to, I know you do. But, even if you won’t love again, there will always be someone that will love you and will want you in his life even if they can’t ever have you.”

Baekhyun’s heart jumped as Tae-ho brought their foreheads together, getting so close to him, and it stayed there as the demon refused to let him think he wasn’t worth anything any longer. “I’d wait for you. I’d throw everything aside for you. We were Tae-Baek, inseperable for over two decades. What’s a few more?”

Their noses touched and Baekhyun felt a shock run through his body, all the way to his toes. His body ached for it, the soft caresses to his skin, but it didn’t ache for Tae-ho, it ached for Chanyeol. Chanyeol, who was no longer his and would never be again. “No matter how bad things get, you’ll always have me. In whatever way you want me. You can come back with me if you want to, anything. I’ll make it work. Anything to get you to smile again.”

Baekhyun closed his eyes, feeling so tired of being alone, and as Tae-ho retrieved his hands to push the fallen one’s shirt out of the way, presumably to get him out of it and help him into his pajamas the way he always did, Baekhyun gave in to that desire.

“Kiss me,” he blurted out, the words drowned in a certain desperation, after which the whole world went quiet with anticipation of what either of them would do next. Baekhyun was the first to speak, begging into the silence, his voice trembling as he did, “please.”

Tae-ho didn’t move, not until long after Baekhyun had opened his eyes and looked up at him once more. He must have known that Baekhyun wasn’t asking him to because he suddenly had feelings for him. He had to know it wouldn’t mean anything significant, and Baekhyun would have understood if he had refused for that reason, but he also knew Tae-ho. He knew Tae-ho and the demon was as weak as he was being right now.

At least, though, neither of them would have to worry about having to talk about it after, claiming how it was a mistake and how no feelings were involved. Both of them were aware of that when Tae-ho dipped down to let his lips meet Baekhyun’s, who was tipping his head up to meet him in fiery eagerness.

Their mouths remembered just how to fit together, they knew just how to tilt their heads to deepen the kiss and it didn’t take long before a hand found its way into Baekhyun’s hair either. And they kissed.

There was nothing gracious about it, nothing soft and sweet. They kissed with intensity, with a need to feel something that both of them had been lacking, and Baekhyun wanted to cry. The feeling of being kissed again, of being desired by someone, it made it easier to breathe.

Tae-ho’s fingers trailed down his chest, leaving behind a trace of emotions that left him hungry for more. It wasn’t a good way to cope, it was the demon way, but Baekhyun would take it. He was a bad person whether he did this or not, one kiss more or less wouldn’t change it.

Moreover, he was a free man, because even though his heart was taken, his body wasn’t, and he craved so much more than a simple kiss. He told himself not to feel guilty, not to feel sorry about taking what he could rightfully take because he didn’t have anyone to answer to. Chanyeol was gone, he was gone and he no longer cared about Baekhyun. Maybe he never had in the first place.

The thought made Baekhyun that much more needy for Tae-ho’s touch, and so he dragged the demon down on top of him, their bodies coming together, something to which Tae-ho didn’t protest. He kissed Baekhyun deeper, forced his lips to part, and as the fallen one opened up he let himself drown in the feeling. With his eyes closed it was easy to pretend, even if Tae-ho was nothing like Chanyeol, that for a moment he got to experience being with him again.

He let his hands roam across a sturdy back, tugging a shirt out of tight-fitted jeans, and the second he touched the burning hot skin that had been hidden underneath, the kiss broke.

Tae-ho breathed in deeply, nose pressed to Baekhyun’s cheek, and he groaned quietly as he pulled himself away. Baekhyun was confused when the demon detached himself from him, as he lay down next to the fallen one and tugged him into his arms the way he would usually do once they’d get ready to sleep.

“I don’t think that’s the smartest move right now,” he whispered as he pushed Baekhyun’s hair out of his face, tracing a thumb across his exposed collar bone. The fact that Tae-ho was so much more composed, so clear-headed, it made Baekhyun feel embarrassed at his own behaviour.

“You know it’s not that I don’t want to,” Tae-ho went on, talking any ideas about Baekhyun not being enough out of his head, “but you’re still so out of it. I- I care about you to much for that.” It was sweet, almost admirable, if it wasn’t for the fact that it left Baekhyun so frustrated.

Because nothing was enough for him. Nothing was Chanyeol, and all it did was remind him again of how they were over. Over and done with, with Chanyeol gone far, far away from him so they could never be anything ever again either.

And that was it. Accepting the truth was something Baekhyun had been struggling with, but sometimes it would hit him at full force, as it did now.

He didn’t reply to Tae-ho’s words, he wouldn’t know what to say anyway, so instead he rolled away from his hold and sat himself up. Shaking off his shirt fully this time, he mumbled, “I’m taking a shower and then I should eat. Want to watch a movie after?” He kept his eyes on the wall as he talked and undressed himself at the same time.

“You should sleep, though,” Tae-ho argued as Baekhyun pushed down his underwear. He seemed in no way affected by his nudity, they had seen each other naked plenty of times before, yet Baekhyun felt a little disappointed at the lack of response he was getting. He knew Tae-ho had a point and that he was right to stop them, but he couldn’t help himself, couldn’t stop from wanting to feel like he wasn’t alone anymore, just for a little while.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to,” Baekhyun replied coldly, his back still turned to the demon as he walked to his bathroom, “but suit yourself and go to bed if you want to. You don’t have to stay up for me.” Both of them knew Baekhyun wasn’t actually strong enough to mean his words, but as he walked away without receiving an answer, he realised that Tae-ho was kind enough to let him pretend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I just returned from a week in London and I wrote literally NOTHING. I'm hoping for the floodgates of inspiration to open this weekend so I can write a lot more! 
> 
> Anyway, I promise that like the worst is over now. No more making things worse!! It's only 4 chapters and an epilogue left after all. ^^


	32. Choices [M]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Byun Baekhyun, tell us what you wish for. With what possible outcome would you be happy?” she was asking him about what he wanted in return if they were to agree with his story, and as those words echoed in the room, Baekhyun realised how this was where he would have to decide. Decide whether he would choose heaven over life on earth, or whether he’d leave heaven behind once and for all.

~

 

“Are you ready?” Tae-ho asked Baekhyun, his hands pushing down the fallen one’s shoulders to keep him guarded, forcing him to look into his eyes by following his line of sight with his head. It looked a little ridiculous, like a chicken bopping its head, but Baekhyun felt too tense to laugh at it.

He stared at his friend as nerves coursed through him at full speed, but one look into Tae-ho’s black pupils turned that anxiety into fierce determination. He knew that he wouldn’t be putting Baekhyun through this unless he knew they were absolutely in their right, and so his trust in Tae-ho was enough to calm him down to a more acceptable level of nervous.

Baekhyun nodded and pursed his lips together as he swallowed away the jitters. He could do this, without a doubt. He was a fallen one for fuck’s sake, that meant that surely he had a lot more guts than anyone up in heaven would have.

Besides, they couldn’t hurt him even if they wanted to, because he was untouchable without his heart in his chest to begin with. It was the one and only advantage of dealing with heartbreak.

Forcing any unnecessary thoughts from his mind, Baekhyun focused on remembering proper etiquette, considering how he’d get to meet with an angel within minutes. If he had bad manners he wouldn’t get anything done whatsoever, so he prayed his mind still knew what being an angel entailed.

Minutes. He was minutes away from finally being able to voice his part of the story, and Minsu was there with them to be the living piece of evidence they had needed to achieve it. He would be able to clear his name as well as his family’s name, but most importantly, he’d be able to show Minjae that he hadn’t failed him.

“Minsu, you ready as well?” Tae-ho let go of Baekhyun’s shoulders and moved on to the man that was standing right next to them. Minsu awkwardly stood there, dressed in his finest suit, completely frozen. It was a hilarious sight because the man was as white as a sheet and had the widest eyes, creating a strange contrast that had him looking a mix between authorative and frightened.

It was funny because he in no way had to be nervous about anything, yet he looked worse than Baekhyun.

“Yeah,” Minsu squeaked, nodding his head in such a way that his hair flopped around on top. He held his hands together in front of his body, squeezing so tight his knuckled had turned white, and Baekhyun smiled at the sight and felt himself more able to breathe.

He straightened his back, chin raised high, and stood his guard as he waited for the angels to make their presence known. The light wouldn’t blind him, but he knew Tae-ho would have to look away at first, his eyes not used to the brightness of it. He was also sure that Minsu would turn to stone behind him at the sight of the heavenly creatures, and so he forgot about them both and paid attention only to his task, which was getting them inside.

The figure that appeared in front of him, born from the light, had soft mousy brown hair and bright blue eyes. They were the same colours Baekhyun used to have, but it wasn’t until he had fully become visible to Baekhyun, until he had stepped up to greet him, that Baekhyun saw who it was.

Baekbeom.

“Brother,” Baekhyun brought out, his mouth dropping open in shock as he saw his angelic brother in front of him, bearing a scroll in his hands. He looked imposing, grown up in many ways, but what surprised Baekhyun most was to see that he was the angel sent out to meet them there. Clearly his brother had done their family proud and had made his way into the higher ranks.

Baekhyun could tell from the light he radiated that Baekbeom wasn’t there as his brother but merely as a representative, and he didn’t show Baekhyun any mercy or kindness as he first saw him. There was no smile, no hug to acknowledge him after years of not having seen each other. He stood there, only a very stern, professional looking messenger.

Baekbeom watched him for a moment, their eyes meeting, and then he gave a nod, “Byun Baekhyun,” he greeted him, “we have allowed you to speak to us concerning your fall in the year 1999, after the failing of protecting the late Hae Minjae.” His voice was emotionless, stating facts, and Baekhyun knew not to expect much more from him as he heard that.

He gave a nod in return to show he had understood the message and agreed with it, before he turned to Tae-ho and Minsu, who were standing a few steps away. He beckoned them closer before he turned back to his brother to explain to him why they were there, “I have brought two witnesses. I beg your permission for them to be allowed in with me.”

After he took this in, Baekbeom closed his eyes for a moment, tuning into a frequency Baekhyun could no longer listen to, but he knew he was discussing the matter with those involved. It was rather weird to see it all as an outsider, no longer part of it all but knowing just what it felt like.

Then, when his brother’s eyes opened again he raised his hand and snapped his fingers. And like that, all three of them had disappeared, reappearing in a hearing room in heaven.

Baekhyun had only ever been in one of these once, the day of his fall, and back then he hadn’t had the time to appreciate how beautiful it was. The walls were high, the ceiling appearing to be non-existent, and it all looked like a dream, like one touch would make it all disappear.

Both Tae-ho and Minsu were quiet as they were led to their seats, not too far away from the stand. Their eyes were glued on the walls of the room they were in, taking everything in as this was their first time seeing anything related to heaven. And sure, everything was beautifully decorated, very similar to most human churches Baekhyun had seen before, but to him none of it was new.

He walked up to his stand, the one where he’d have to give his plea, and faced the judges in front of him. They looked like the most delicate sculptures, their skin as perfect as marble and detailed to perfection. Baekhyun had once admired them, he had thought they had been sculpted from god himself, until they had unfairly thrown him out. That was when he had first seen how no one is every perfect. Everyone has flaws, including angels, and seeing them seated there, without a doubt feeling almeighty and powerful, Baekhyun felt nothing.

He waited patiently for them to notice him and allow him to speak, which took much longer than he had hoped it would. Baekhyun could feel the annoyance that came with being human, the impatience he felt because for him this was losing time of his life, time that was precious to him. They didn’t care about that, they quite literally had all the time in the world, but no matter how badly he wanted to call them out on it, he couldn’t be impolite right now.

It was almost as if he could feel Tae-ho’s eyes on his back, telling him to behave himself and not do anything stupid. For a demon that was quite hypocrite, but then again Tae-ho had spent a lot of time getting this opportunity for him, and to see it go to waste would be worse. Baekhyun understood him, he wasn’t going to fuck up.

Instead of bursting out with anger, the way he really wanted to, he softly cleared his voice to demand their attention. The angels stopped talking, turning their heads towards Baekhyun as they noticed him, and he bent his head in respect as he spoke up, “My name is Byun Baekhyun, I’m a fallen one currently residing on earth as a mortal and I’m here to discuss the details of my fall.”

The angels sat up straighter in their chairs, and when Baekhyun looked up he saw how three pairs of eyes were still focused on him. The woman in the middle, who he presumed was the head of their party, was staring at him with the tiniest hint of a smile, as if she knew him already, but the men flanking her looked at him warily.

When they didn’t speak, he knew he had permission to continue with his story, “when they took my wings, back in 1999, they told me it was because I had failed my first ever task. That task was to take care of Hae Minjae, a mortal residing in Seoul, a mortal with a bright future ahead. I was charged for having lost sight of him, resulting in an early death.”

He swallowed and raised his head a little higher, wanting to ooze the confidence he was supposed to feel, “but they were wrong about one part of that story.” It was risky, stating so clearly that the angels had made a mistake, but it was the truth.

“They told me Minjae’s fortune had predicted a child, and I had failed because he died before that fortune became reality. Except, unbeknownst to these angels, and to me too at that time, Minjae’s wife was in the early stages of pregnancy when she lost her husband, meaning that the fortune came true still.”

Baekhyun raised a hand, pointing in Minsu’s direction, “I have brought along Hae Minsu, son of Hae Minjae and Park Hye-Jin, born on the eighth of February in the year 2000. Please, for the sake of Hae Minjae and his son, look into my case.”

The female angel rested her chin on her hands, staring at Minsu for a moment, and then she hummed and looked back at the fallen one, “I see.” She tilted her head to the side and watched him curiously, as if she was trying to figure out his motives, and when she couldn’t she resorted to asking.

“Byun Baekhyun, tell us what you wish for. With what possible outcome would you be happy?” she was asking him about what he wanted in return if they were to agree with his story, and as those words echoed in the room, Baekhyun realised how this was where he would have to decide. Decide whether he would choose heaven over life on earth, or whether he’d leave heaven behind once and for all.

He had spent so much time thinking about it over the past two weeks, when the news of their scheduled meeting had been brought to him. He had made a huge list of all the pros and cons, had talked to Tae-ho and his friends about it, and now he had to pick either side. Two weeks hadn’t been enough to decide for a lifetime, but now he had to.

Tae-ho had been anything but delighted when Baekhyun had told him he was considering going back. Over the past weeks where he had visited the fallen one, he had grown quite attached to Baekhyun again and so he wasn’t in favour of him leaving. More than anything, he wanted Baekhyun to come back to hell with him, but if the fallen one refused that, then earth was the only place left where they could see each other. And so Tae-ho was against.

Kyungsoo in turn had told him that all he wanted was for Baekhyun to be happy, wherever that was. He didn’t want to cloud his judgement by saying he would miss Baekhyun, because that would go without saying. He kept pressing that no one was supposed to live for others and that he should be making this choice based on his own feelings. Baekhyun had to choose what would make _him_ happiest, and Kyungsoo would accept whatever that resulted in.

Minseok though, Minseok had been the most torn up one. He had cried when Baekhyun had told him where he stood in it all, and it had caught Baekhyun off guard. It wasn’t often that Minseok let his guard down as far as he had done the night the two of them had sat down to talk. Baekhyun had actually expected him to be snappy, a little sarcastic maybe, but not emotional the way he had really been.

“It’s like you’re a part of my family now, Baek, I won’t lie to you, I don’t want to lose that,” Minseok had told him after he had blinked back the tears, “I know what they did to you and I know how much you suffered afterwards. You deserve better, and I can’t believe you going back to heaven would be that. You belong here, with Kyungsoo and me, with Chanyeol.”

At first Baekhyun had thought it had only been a slip of the tongue, that Minseok had spoken without thinking about what exactly it was that he was saying, but he hadn’t looked worried about having said the wrong thing. In fact, he had gone on to explain why he had mentioned him in the first place. “I still think Chanyeol was only being a big asshole and a liar. I don’t think he really meant half of what he said.”

Baekhyun had been ready to protest, to state how he had asked Chanyeol multiple times whether he had been serious about his feelings, and Chanyeol had clearly chosen to let him go. However, Minseok had been quicker, “I know what you’re thinking, but I think differently. I saw the way he looked at you, at Baekhyun and not Jaehyun. He was in love with you, I’m sure of it, Baek.”

Looking like a fish out of the water, Baekhyun had stuttered, his mouth half open, “but he still left, whether you’re right or not. He left me behind, so none of that matters.” Baekhyun had been working so hard to tear down whatever hope had been left within him until it had been so small that it could be easily overlooked, but it had been jumping, demanding attention when Minseok had told him that.

“True as that may be,” Minseok had said next, “if you go to heaven, you will be permanently leaving. Chanyeol left, yes, but he’s not really gone. He’s out there somewhere, maybe regretting ever having hurt you but being too scared to come back and fix it. If you leave, though, then all of it ends. If you choose heaven, you will never have Chanyeol again.”

Baekhyun had wanted to scream at him, he had wanted to throw a fit, because Chanyeol was not supposed to be a reason on his list, and he definitely wasn’t supposed to go on the ‘cons of going to heaven’ part of that. If anything, he was more of a reason to get back to heaven than to stay. That way Baekhyun wouldn’t have to hope to ever see him again.

In the end Minseok had left him with a hug and the request for him to, “choose wisely, and choose not only with your broken heart, but with your mind too.” He had smiled as he had left Baekhyun alone, not knowing just how much of a mess he had made of Baekhyun’s lists with his words.

Ever since then, Chanyeol had been back on his mind. Plaguing him in his sleep because Baekhyun spent so much time at night analysing everything that had happened during their final talk. Could people really act that well? Could he really have lied for whatever reason he had to do so? Baekhyun had found it hard to believe, but it was still plausible.

Baekhyun had spent the past month thinking everything had been a lie, but Minseok had planted a seed of doubt with his words. What had caused it to grow were the memories Baekhyun had with Chanyeol, memories that had all come back to him night after night.  

Like all the times where his ex-boyfriend had put in so much effort to show him how he didn’t see him as Jaehyun. First through the texting-only and then with the ice cream and their other dates. In all of those memories he had felt like Baekhyun, not like he was pretending to be someone else.

Morever, Chanyeol had said his name every time they had shared the bed, he had spent hours upon hours sharing what he liked about Baekhyun and how different he was from Jaehyun, that was supposed to count for something too, right?

Baekhyun shook his head, throwing the memories of his first love to the back of his mind. He wasn’t supposed to make this decision based on what he still felt for the tall fucker who broke his heart, neither was he supposed to think about his friends. Kyungsoo was right about that: this was the moment where Baekhyun would have to think of himself.

Did he want to stay on earth a mortal, experiencing emotions and growing older every day, getting to make his own decisions whether good or bad? Or did he want to go back to heaven, where he would lose ‘Baekhyun’ and would become an angel in the name of god, a guardian to the mortals he now lived amongst.

Mortal life was tough, especially without powers. It came with choices to make, obstacles to overcome, and heaven wasn’t anything like that. In heaven he followed orders, he dealt in love and happiness without the complications of being stuck in that life himself. Was that what he wanted?

With how much time he had already spent thinking about it, with the uncertainty that he had felt before he had been asked the question, he expected the choice to be more difficult, but he found it surprisingly easy to answer. He felt convinced of himself too, no doubt left in him as he responded.

“I would like for you to restore my name in the books, to clear my family of any wrongdoing that might have fallen upon them due to my fall, and I want to see Hae Minjae. I want to talk to him one last time, I need peace of mind that he does not hate me for what happened to him,” Baekhyun summed up, “that is all.”

Some whispering broke out between the two male angels, but their voices were too hushed for him to hear as they talked to the woman in the middle. She listened to both of them, her face not telling him anything either, and then she raised her hands, which made them both go quiet instantly.

“Am I right when I say you do not wish to return to us? You do not wish to get your wings back?” she asked. She looked so composed, yet her voice betrayed how shocked she was. Baekhyun understood why too, because angels would never give up their life if they could, not for anything. If they were given the choice they would choose heaven over whatever other option they’d have, but Baekhyun had always been different.

He had always longed for something else, and now he had tasted it he didn’t want to go back. He loved the pleasures human life brought him, enjoyed the rush of excitement when he had made something work for himself. It was all him there, and he wouldn’t go back to being a servant of god for anything.

“You are right,” Baekhyun replied, “I do not wish to return to heaven. I have built my own life as a human and that is where I wish to remain for the rest of my life. I hope you understand.” He smiled politely, showing how he did not mean to offend them with his decision, and then he turned away from the stand and walked up to Tae-ho.

The demon was gaping at him, apparently having expected Baekhyun to choose his first home over his current one, but when Baekhyun reached him he snapped out of it. He pulled the fallen one into a hug and heaved a sigh of relief, squeezing Baekhyun tightly in his arms, “my god, you- you did it.”

Baekhyun smiled as he pulled back, getting Tae-ho’s arms off of him, “yeah, I did.” He turned to Minsu then, when he still had his focus, and told him, “alright, now it’s your turn.”

He waited for Minsu to nod in understanding before he started guiding the man to the stand. Baekhyun helped him up there, giving a last supportive squeeze now that he still could. In the back the angels were still discussing the matter, coming up with their decision, and Baekhyun stayed with Minsu as they waited. “Don’t worry, they won’t hurt you or anything, they will only want to confirm you’re really his son. I hope you will allow them to.”

Minsu laughed, the sound anxious, and he looked down at Baekhyun from the stand, “it’s funny because aren’t they supposed to know already? Like, don’t they know who’s related to whom, that sorta thing?” he asked.

Baekhyun chuckled, “yeah, that’s what you’d expect right? The issue is that there are so many people, both alive and dead, and so there’s simply too many to know about. Everything is put on paper, but you can imagine that throughout all of history, there have been more than one Hae Minjae and Hae Minsu and so it would be pretty difficult to find.”

Minsu seemed to get it now, but his reassured smile slowly turned into a frown as this raised new questions, “but how will they be able to find out then? If it’s such a hassle to find it in the papers?” he asked, and Baekhyun laughed at that.

“Well, I guess kind of the human way?” he shrugged, “your DNA will give them the answer. So all they’ll require is some of your saliva. Easy, but they do need your permission, so.” He briefly touched Minsu’s hand as he noticed the angels had made up their mind and were now facing them, ready to question the man at the stand.

“Hae Minsu, do you swear, upon god, to whom lying is a sin, that you are the son of Hae Minjae? The Hae Minjae born in 1976 in Seoul, South Korea?” the woman asked Minsu, who looked partly terrified of being addressed by an actual angel. He looked overwhelmed and so it took some time before he answered them, but Baekhyun knew he’d get there. If Minsu was anything like his father he’d compose himself soon enough.

“Yes,” he answered, sounding a little unsure still, “I swear, for my mother is Park Hye-Jin and she has sworn to me that my father’s name is Hae Minjae.”

The angel up front nodded, having already expected this answer, otherwise Minsu wouldn’t have been there, but those were the rules they had to abide. She was forced to ask him her next question as well, “alright, Hae Minsu, to prove you are indeed who you say you are, we request you to follow the angel that delivered you so we can confirm your identity.”

Minsu looked over at Baekhyun, who gave him a nod to show it was okay. Tae-ho got up next to him, declaring he would accompany them to keep an eye on whether things would go according to the rules. Baekhyun was thankful to him, because the last thing he wanted was for Minsu to feel uncomfortable out there on his own.

He watched them follow Baekbeom outside of the room, and just like that a heavy burden fell off his shoulders. Finally, after three decades, Baekhyun had been able to clear his name. Finally they had listened to him explain and now he would get the justice he so deserved.

“Bring in Hae Minjae!” the woman yelled next, startling Baekhyun with her voice. He didn’t even have time to process her words before a door opened and someone stepped inside the room, pausing momentarily as the doors closed behind him again.

Baekhyun spun around, facing him better, and when he saw it was in fact Minjae, his Minjae, the world stopped around him. He blinked, resisting the urge to rub his eyes to check if he was dreaming, because he knew he wasn’t. This was real.

Minjae stared back at him, a look of surprise on his face, and Baekhyun realised a little too late that maybe he wouldn’t recognise him now that he was in a different body. He had to understand though, that he was brought out there for a reason. Did he know this was Baekhyun, the one that had been his best friend throughout his teenage years, up until the day he had died?

“Minjae,” he whispered, taking a few tentative steps towards the man, who looked like he hadn’t aged a day since Baekhyun had last seen him. His skin had been cleansed, any scars left by the accident long gone, and he was thankful for that. He’d get a good last memory with him, another shot to forget the broken body that he saw whenever he thought of Minjae before.

“It’s me, Baekhyun,” he explained as he took another two steps, waiting for Minjae to say or do something that would tell him how he felt about him now. “Minnie, I came to put things right,” he said next, “please, hear me out and believe my words.”

He was begging for Minjae to be forgiving, to listen to him tell his story once more, but it turned out he didn’t have to, because Minjae smiled at him warmly. He smiled, blinding Baekhyun with it, and then he took a few steps himself, meeting Baekhyun halfway.

Two arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulled him in, and Baekhyun could hear a laugh against the shell of his ear, “Baek.” To hear Minjae say his name like that, like he was happy and at peace, it made Baekhyun downright lose it.

He broke down in Minjae’s arms, wrapped his own around the other’s waist to hold on to him, and he pressed his face to Minjae’s shoulder. Minjae caught him easily, being Baekhyun’s support this time while the fallen one felt his world shift. Every regret he had ever felt about his life as an angel, every worry that had haunted him for so long, they aligned until they ceased to exist.

“It’s okay,” he heard Minjae say, “I already know it wasn’t your fault.” A hand rubbed Baekhyun’s back, going up and down and tracing his spine, and Baekhyun’s eyes fell shut as he let Minjae set things straight, telling him about life in heaven and how he hadn’t been in pain when he had died.

“I heard you before I passed away,” Minjae told him, “I know you tried to save me. It’s how I knew something had to be wrong when they told me what happened to you. I wish I could have helped, even just by telling you that.”

Baekhyun shook his head in return, didn’t want Minjae to regret anything because none of it was his fault. Nothing that had happened to Baekhyun was his doing. He had lost his wife, a chance of raising his son, the last thing he should have been thinking about was Baekhyun.

“No, don’t say that. _I’m_ sorry. I’m sorry you didn’t get more time. I’m sorry that you never got to meet your son or grow old with your wife,” Baekhyun pulled free just enough to look at Minjae’s face, “I wish I could have done more for you. I would have given my life for you.”

Minjae rolled his eyes at him and chuckled, booping Baekhyun’s nose the way he had used to do back when they had been young, “you didn’t change one bit, even though you don’t look like the angel I used to know.” He smiled fondly, tilting his head to the side as if he was proud. Baekhyun didn’t understand, but Minjae didn’t explain either.

“I watch over them from where I am, that’s more than I could have asked for,” Minjae said, referring to his wife and son, and Baekhyun nodded in surrender. “Please tell him I love him and that no matter what he does, I will always be proud of who he grew up to be,” his friend asked of him then, looking even prouder as he did.

Baekhyun’s gaze shifted, to behind Minjae, and he saw that while they had gotten lost in their conversation a door had opened again. As Baekhyun took in Minsu’s shocked face and his frozen posture, he figured that the man knew this was his father. And so Baekhyun did the only thing he knew he should: he gave up the last bit of time he had with Minjae and handed it over to Minsu.

“Why don’t you tell him yourself?” Baekhyun whispered as he stepped away from his first ever friend, but not before he ordered him to turn around. He grabbed both Minjae’s upper arms and twirled him so he could see his son right behind him, the man that was already in tears without anything having happened between them at all.

It was a strange sight, mostly because they looked so alike at this age that it was almost like looking at twins. Even the angels went silent as Minsu got to see and speak to his father for the first, and likely only time.

“Dad?” he asked, as if he needed any confirmation, and Baekhyun wished he could see Minjae’s face as he heard himself getting addressed like that. He had never heard himself getting called ‘dad’ before.

“Minsu…” Minjae’s voice was soft and loving, and when Minsu broke with the mention of his name, Baekhyun could hear Minjae choking up as well. Minsu fell into his father’s arms, looking like a child as he lost every trace of business-like demeanor he had come here with. Within seconds his nose was running, his sobbing loud and ugly, but Minjae only hushed him.

They fell to their knees together, the weight too heavy to carry, and Baekhyun felt how their moment made him emotional as well. For a split second it made him regret the fact that he was leaving heaven behind for good, simply because as an angel he could make memories like these happen. It was a relief that even if he wouldn’t be an angel ever again, they were still out there.

“I’m sorry, son, that I couldn’t be there for you in your life. I’m sorry you grew up without a father,” Minjae kissed his son’s head, rocking him from side to side, “but it made you so much stronger too. And you’ve taken such good care of your mom, of your own family, I could not be prouder to be your dad.”

Minsu cried and cried, unable to say anything, but he didn’t have to because Minjae kept talking to him to fill up the little time they had, “tell your mom I love her, okay? Even after all those years I still see her and feel my heart flutter. Remember that I am always with you even though you cannot see me. I’m right there, whenever you need me.”

Tae-ho stood beside Baekhyun and he reached out to take his hand. Baekhyun let it and Tae-ho held onto him as the two of them watched the last page of the book being flipped. Baekhyun was reaching the final sentences, almost ready to finish the story and close the book, ready for a new adventure, with new chapters filled with hope.

But Baekhyun wasn’t the only one finishing a chapter today. Minsu was too, getting to see for himself how he was loved by the man he had never got to have around in life. It was a moment Baekhyun would never forget, one he would cherish in the moments where life would be rough on him. Because one day he’d die too, one day he’d become like Minjae, nothing but a memory to those around him, but he hoped that when he did, they’d be left with happy memories.

~

When Baekhyun arrived back home, Tae-ho walked with him towards his door. The both of them were quiet, nothing but the sound of their feet against the tiles, as the realisation of what exactly had happened today was slowly dawning upon them.

Baekhyun had cleared his name of the lie that had been tied to it, and he had found a way to leave everything behind him and move on from the mistakes made in the past. But what they were both thinking about most, was the fact that Baekhyun had made the decision to throw aside the possibility of returning to where he had been born. Now, without a doubt, he would never be an angel again.

As he unlocked the door to his apartment, Baekhyun seemed to realise the weight of it. He was actually coming home now, back down on earth, to the place where he’d remain the rest of his life. He’d be _this_ Baekhyun, the mortal stuck in the body of Lee Jaehyun, bartender and tea-lover with the craziest friends he could have wished for. That would be his life now.

It wasn’t a bad foresight, not something that he regretted now that he realised it, but it was rather strange to suddenly become aware of. Before he knew about Minsu he had always thought like that, but then the possibility to go back had returned to him and changed his perception. Now, more than ever, it was final.

Unsurprisingly, Tae-ho went inside the apartment with him, like he had done night after night already. He closed the door behind them and then followed Baekhyun’s example of taking off his coat. He was done before Baekhyun was, and being used to spending time there, he walked up to the kitchenette to start boiling some water.

Baekhyun watched him as he stuck his scarf into the sleeve of his coat, thinking that this must be what it felt like to live with someone, and he was relieved. Relieved because he wasn’t alone, because Tae-ho had been his rock through all the pain, and Baekhyun would never forget that. He would forever owe him for it.

“You actually decided to stay,” Baekhyun heard Tae-ho say, his back turned to the fallen one as he was still focused on the boiling water. He had two mugs ready for them, Baekhyun’s favourite cup being one of them, “I’m not sure what I expected, but I don’t think it was that.”

Stretching himself, Baekhyun walked over to his sofa, knowing Tae-ho would join him there once he was done with their drinks. It was nice, feeling like he was on stable ground for once, with his mind too occupied to really think about how emotionally he was still pretty much a wreck. Today had done him well, had fixed some of the cracks that Chanyeol hadn’t been the cause of, and so Baekhyun felt slightly better. If those cracks could heal, then everything could.

“Thanks,” he said as he grasped the mug with hot tea from Tae-ho’s hand, taking it between his own to get them to warm up, “and I know. I wasn’t actually sure about what I was going to say until I stood there and it all fell into place.” He brought the rim up to his lips and smiled softly before taking a sip, feeling no regret about it at all.

“I’m glad you did,” Tae-ho admitted as he leaned back in his seat, throwing up his legs on the table, “who else would I pester if you were gone?” he sounded like he was joking, but Baekhyun knew it wasn’t just a joke. Tae-ho had had a hard time when Baekhyun had left hell, but back then there had at least been the promise of visiting each other. If Baekhyun had left earth too, they’d never be able to see each other again.

“Some other unfortunate soul,” he grumbled in return, biting back his smile as he focused on sipping. Tae-ho wanted to hit him for it, but he stopped right in time, noticing the cup pressed to Baekhyun’s lips. He sat back again, shaking his head fondly, and Baekhyun grinned brighter.

“Anyway,” the fallen one said a little later, breaking their silence as he put down his mug on the table, “thank you for all your hard work. I know you did everything you could to make me happy, and I am.” Baekhyun sat sideways, facing his friend, and he watched him intently as Tae-ho put down his mug as well.

The demon turned to face him, staring back at Baekhyun a little curiously, and Baekhyun wanted to look away in slight embarrassment for how it made him feel, but he dared himself not to. He licked his lips, saw the way Tae-ho’s eyes fell down to them, and he chuckled softly, “today was nice. Don’t you think?”

Tae-ho hummed, his eyes flitting away from Baekhyun’s mouth as if he had gotten caught, and a hand made its way up to the back of his neck, where he brushed it through his hair a little awkwardly, “yeah, it was. You looked pretty fierce despite the fact that you weren’t actually telling them to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. Such a composed version of the Baekhyun I remember.”

Baekhyun shrugged, feeling this thump in his chest that was entirely due to the fact that Tae-ho was being flirty in his body language, even if it was him that had started it. Not too long ago, Baekhyun had been pushed away when he had advanced on him, but something about the mood now was euphoric and right, made him think this time it wouldn’t be the same. He was relieved and thankful for how things had gone, and he wanted nothing more than to celebrate.

“The Baekhyun you remember, what was he like?” Baekhyun shot back as he got his legs up on the couch, angling himself more towards Tae-ho, and just like that they had snapped into that playful mode they had been so good at back in hell, the one used when one of them wanted to have some fun. This was how it had always started, and Baekhyun couldn’t imagine Tae-ho would try to resist him once more.

“He was pretty damn dark, evil too,” Tae-ho grinned, “a true sight to behold, actually. But I have a feeling he was a very good actor, because this Baekhyun, however, is much more innocent and pure. You think about the feelings of others more than your own, which is really unlike my Baekhyun.”

“Is that so?” Baekhyun asked, shaking his head in fake disbelief, “that’s funny, cause I would swear you have been taking care of me and putting my feelings above your own, too, so what does that say about you?” he raised both eyebrows, as if to say ‘got you’, and Tae-ho blinked in surprise.

Maybe he hadn’t realised that he had in fact done just that, or maybe he hadn’t expected for Baekhyun to pick up on it. Either way his shock didn’t last long before he huffed and crossed his arms in front of his chest, the precise picture of someone having lost an argument, “well, I don’t know? Maybe that I like that you as much as I used to like my Baekhyun?”

It wasn’t the answer Baekhyun had expected. He had predicted for Tae-ho to full on deny it or throw back a witty comment, something sexual maybe to stick to the flirty mood, but instead he had let this sort-of confession slip. He didn’t look like he regretted it either, and Baekhyun’s heart jumped again.

He had missed being desired over the past few weeks, for someone to look at him like he mattered and wasn’t to be pitied, but Tae-ho did. He had done it back in hell and he was doing it now, despite everything Baekhyun had been through. He accepted Baekhyun’s human flaws and cared about him regardless of his broken heart, and Baekhyun would have been damn stupid not to see that and allow himself to enjoy it.

He climbed up on his knees, crawling over until he was right in front of the demon, who let himself be pushed back into the couch with Baekhyun’s hand pressed to his chest. He looked up at him, telling Baekhyun with his eyes not to fuck with him, to remember what he had said when he had pushed the fallen one away last time. And Baekhyun did remember, but he didn’t care.

Without thinking twice about it he dipped his head, planting a firm kiss to Tae-ho’s lips, making his intention clear, and then he swung one leg over the demon’s hips so he could sit himself down in his lap first.

Hands found his hips instantly, never having forgotten how to respond to Baekhyun’s touches, and when they kissed again it was dark and dirty, a mess of tongues and teeth in a burning fire that coursed through them. Baekhyun brought his hands up to tangle in Tae-ho’s hair, tugging on it whenever either one of them would deepen the kiss just a little too much.

Kissing felt like oxygen, and with Tae-ho’s mouth biting down his neck Baekhyun felt like he broke the surface, coming up from a deep dive. He was gasping, fingers following the collar of Tae-ho’s shirt until he found the first button on the front, and he closed his eyes to the world.

The demon sucked on his Adam’s apple, leaving a mark there because he knew Baekhyun liked it, and then he moved on down, to where his lips found the scar. He paused, if only for a second, but Baekhyun felt it, felt the recognition that this was a different body than Tae-ho had been used to. It didn’t seem to matter, not the way it had done with Chanyeol, because the kisses moved on.

Baekhyun briefly thought of him, could see his ex-boyfriend’s face behind his closed eyelids, and he wondered if for him being with Baekhyun had felt like a strange sense of coming home, the way he was feeling about Tae-ho now. The familiarity was nice, made it less complicated, so was that why he had been able to sleep with Baekhyun when he didn’t really have feelings for him? It fuelled some sort of rage in him, this anger towards Chanyeol for having strung him along for months, and it made him that much more desperate to get Tae-ho naked.

His fingers stumbled over each other as he worked on the buttons, but this time the demon didn’t stop him and snap him out of it. Tae-ho only had so much self-restraint, just like Baekhyun did. It was how he knew he’d end up underneath him soon, panting and begging for more, the way he had always had.

Tae-ho proved to be a lot less patient than him, and so the last two buttons of Baekhyun’s shirt flew away, dropping somewhere on the floor on either side of the couch, but Baekhyun didn’t complain because in return he got two warm hands sliding across his shoulders, letting the shirt fall away.

There was such a hunger in Tae-ho’s actions, the way his hands splayed out against Baekhyun’s back, trailing down to where his scars were, and Baekhyun shivered as he waited for a comment that never came, for Tae-ho moved on, until he reached Baekhyun’s hips and stopped.

Their mouths found each other again, taking a moment to kiss without rushing for more, and Baekhyun closed his eyes and let his fingers roam across Tae-ho’s stomach. It made the demon turn softer, he could tell it from the way he was placed down on the couch quite gently rather than getting thrown back carelessly.

Tae-ho crawled between Baekhyun’s legs, shrugging his shoulders in an attempt to get his shirt out of the way before he lowered himself on top of him, wasting no time in getting his mouth on Baekhyun’s chest.

Baekhyun could feel fingers toying with the fly of his pants, the button getting popped, and Tae-ho moved smoothly and without words. They knew how to do this, had done it often enough before not to need words, and Baekhyun was glad because he worried maybe it would burst the bubble and bring him back down to his reality if they did have to talk about it.

When he was naked, Tae-ho flipped him over, a hand still placed against Baekhyun’s stomach to help guide him up on his knees. Baekhyun did as he was asked, supporting himself with his hands underneath himself, and Tae-ho let his own hand slide lower in reward.

Open mouthed kisses were placed to the dip at the end of his spine while Tae-ho’s hand got him hard, the sensations still soft, but he knew it was only a matter of time before things would get roughter.

Baekhyun closed his eyes again, waiting for more, for the moment the demon would kiss his way down to where he wanted him and- god, this was absolutely predictable, but Baekhyun was thankful for it too. He knew Tae-ho, knew what to expect from him, and it kept him calm and collected.

He keened as a tongue was added to the kisses, his elbows trembling as they were struggling to keep him up, and he let his mouth fall open so he could breathe a little easier. Backing into Tae-ho’s touch, the whole world seemed to grow smaller around him. As if he couldn’t think, could only feel, and well, Tae-ho knew what to do to make him feel plenty of things at once.

It had been a while since Baekhyun had gotten off, the last time having been with Chanyeol, but he hadn’t exactly been in the mood for any of it. However, the fact that it had been so long made him achingly hard right now, his back arched in demand as far as he could. His body was on edge, ready for more, and so Baekhyun was thankful for the fact that Tae-ho wouldn’t take long to get him ready.

Just as he thought it, a finger pushed inside of him, no hesitance in the move at all, and Baekhyun moaned as he pushed back against it. It was the clear sign for ‘more’, and Tae-ho complied all too soon. The stretch of the second finger added, burned in the exact way he wanted it to, and he smiled while he hissed at it.

From the way he kept pushing back his hips, trying to follow the fingers that kept thrusting into him and spreading him further, Tae-ho could tell how ready he was, and when he deemed it was enough he retreated both his hands and left Baekhyun in absolute despair for the full twenty seconds it took for him to open his own pants and stroke himself to full hardness.

Baekhyun tilted his head in such a way that he could watch the view behind himself, seeing the way Tae-ho was biting on his own lip to keep quiet as he sat back on his heels and touched himself. There was nothing romantic about it, no sweet or loving words whispered to him, but Baekhyun was glad because if that would have been the case he would have surely not been able to go through with it.

He kept his eyes on the demon until Tae-ho looked up at him as he pushed himself back on his knees, one hand already on Baekhyun’s hip. Their eyes met for a second and there was a question in Tae-ho’s eyes, but Baekhyun turned away from it so he could offer himself better, his upper body lowered and his ass up in the air.

Tae-ho’s hands lingered for a moment, slowly sliding down Baekhyun’s ass to his thighs, but then he made up his mind and traced them back up. There was a second where Baekhyun felt nothing, but then the pressure against his entrance made Baekhyun hold his breath, expectantly, until a roll of Tae-ho’s hips got him to slide in.

It hurt like hell without any added lube, but Baekhyun gritted his teeth and took it. He had been able to take this before, he could take it now. The surprise of it made his leg almost slip off the couch as he tried to spread wider, make it a little more comfortable, but Tae-ho caught him just in time.

The hold he had on Baekhyun was tight, lacing the sex with an edge of pain, one that worked well for him. It made him want to chase his own release, his body pushing and pulling to meet Tae-ho’s thrusts, and with every move he made he fould feel the skin of the demon’s hand brush against his erection.

It was the tiniest hint of friction that he needed to feel the increasing rush of his orgasm approaching and so when it disappeared, with Tae-ho retrieving his hand in favour of spreading Baekhyun’s cheeks apart, he whined lowly in annoyance.

He needed the touch so bad, needed to reach that high of pure bliss, that he let himself collapse on his hands, his face pressed into the couch to carry all his weight, just so he could wrap a hand around himself.

Jerking himself off to the rhythm of Tae-ho’s thrusts, Baekhyun felt himself grow short of breath quite quickly. He shut his eyes, not wanting to reach a sensory overload, and focused on the points where their bodies came together and to where his hand felt like heaven around him.

It was a quick fuck, much rougher and intense than Baekhyun had had since he had left hell, but it was long enough to make him feel like he was about to burst if he wouldn’t come very soon.

He sped up his hand, his body losing focus as he tried to both push back and thrust his own hips into his hand. It turned messy that way, ungraceful too, but Tae-ho never faltered. He just kept going and going, their skin slapping together harshly, leaving Baekhyun’s skin red and sensitive to touch – something he’d be able to feel afterwards. His groans were deep and demon-like, making him sound otherworldly, and Baekhyun cried out in the hopes that Tae-ho would understand his plea.

Whether he did or not, Tae-ho responded either way, pulling out of Baekhyun to wrap a hand around himself. The tip of his cock grazed against Baekhyun’s ass on every downstroke, and it only took a few more strokes before Baekhyun felt his back getting covered in drops of come while Tae-ho let out the most chilling moan Baekhyun had ever heard.

He was still so on edge himself, but he couldn’t keep going any longer. His knees buckled, making him fall on top of himself, and he stilled like that as Tae-ho got up from the couch. Baekhyun wondered if he was going to leave now, if he’d really be like that to Baekhyun right now, but it was seconds later that he returned.

Baekhyun felt a cloth against his back, figuring it was probably someone’s underwear, and he sighed heavily as it carelessly wiped his skin clean. “Up, up,” Tae-ho ordered then, his hand on Baekhyun’s sore ass, tapping it softly to make clear what he meant, and Baekhyun sat up and let Tae-ho turn him back around.

The demon kept urging him up until half of Baekhyun’s upper body was hanger over the arm of the sofa, his legs spread and knees up so his feet could rest on the couch. Then, knowing just how frustrated Baekhyun probably was, he got on his stomach, head between the fallen one’s legs, and took him into his mouth.

Tae-ho’s mouth was warm and soft, way too much to take for how exasperated Baekhyun was, but it was exactly what he needed for his eyes to roll back into his head, his ears to tune out until all he heard was static, and he lingered on the edge for so long that his body was hurting by the time Tae-ho pulled him over it, bringing him in that state of pure ecstacy.

He allowed Baekhyun to rolls his hips as he rode it out, following his every move as if he expected it all, and when he finally took his mouth off and pressed a kiss to Baekhyun’s stomach, the fallen one was completely spent.

The kissed trailed their way up, until Tae-ho was face to face with Baekhyun, who was having a difficult time keeping focused enough to look at him. There was a question in Tae-ho’s eyes, one that Baekhyun was able to read quite clearly and that he had annoyed so far, and he answered it by tugging him down for a kiss, wrapping his tired arms around the demon’s shoulders and holding on.

They kissed a while longer, until Baekhyun shivered in the cold, and when Tae-ho copied it, both of them burst out into laughter. The mood was good, not filled with regret at all, and Baekhyun hid his face against the demon’s shoulder as Tae-ho once again lifted him up and carried him to his bedroom, feeling lighter than he had done ever since he had gotten his heart broken.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi so I hope y'all won't kill me for the Tae-ho scene. I know some of you have a soft spot for him but not everyone might. Weird huh, how with only 3 more chapters + an epilogue to go, they're still not back together yet. And even with that, I will still ensure a happy ending. What are you expecting next??? 
> 
> Also, I had an awful week, please send out some good vibes to get my creative juices flowing again, thanks <3 


	33. Open Your Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Then it means you’re not in love with Tae-ho,” he concluded simply, picking up his chopsticks again so he could get back to his food. Baekhyun watched him in both shock and anger, ready to throw all his arguments his way, but there were none. He simply had nothing to say to this, because it was true. Even after all this time, it was still Chanyeol who owned his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo the previous chapter sure got things heated... I stand by my ideas for this fic, even though it saddens me some of you can't/couldn't understand those. I hope this chapter clears up some things about Baekhyun's feelings and his thoughts which led to his decisions.  
> Also, it was Chanbaek day yesterday! What better day than to celebrate some hope than today!!

~

 

"Merry Christmas, Baekhyun!" Minseok welcomed him as he pulled his best friend into his arms the moment the door had fully opened up on him.

Warmth and the smell of food wafted his way instantly, mixed with Minseok’s cologne, and it soothed him, made him feel content and at ease. It was his second home, the place where he could leave all his inhibitions behind, and he was glad to be there for Christmas.

Baekhyun let himself be hugged, even though it was a little uncomfortable with the bag of presents now sandwiched between their bodies, and he dropped his cheek to Minseok’s shoulder as he returned it.

Hugs had become a thing between them, a much loved way to greet each other, and they never skipped it. No matter how much stuff Baekhyun would have been carrying, he would have gotten the hug nevertheless. "Merry Christmas," he replied, a soft smile tugging at his mouth as his free hand patted Minseok's back a little awkwardly.

Luckily for Baekhyun’s tired arms, it only took another few seconds before his friend stepped back and took him in before stepping aside so he could come inside. "You look good," Minseok concluded, referring to Baekhyun's outift, his shirt red with a touch of green to fit the Christmas spirit. He took the bag from the fallen one's grip so he could take off his coat, which he had already unzipped in the time it had taken for Minseok to get to the door. 

His best friend looked good himself too, dressed in black slacks and a white shirt of which the top two buttons were undone. His hair had been cut since the last time they had seen each other, and his smile seemed that much brighter than usual, "Right back at you, Minnie. You look like you're sparkling."

Minseok chuckled and averted his gaze while he let Baekhyun take his bag of presents back from him. There was something about him, something unusual, and Baekhyun narrowed his eyes as he tried to figure out what exactly it was that was different about his friend.

Before he could find out what it was, Minseok placed a hand on his back and began pushing him inside, towards the living room, "come on, Soo is waiting. He has been working his ass off in the kitchen ever since last night, he will be furious if we let it go cold." 

Baekhyun chuckled, couldn't help picture what that would look like: fury from a prince of hell over letting his cooking get cold. To be honest, he didn't want to know what that looked like, especially noy knowing the powers that Kyungsoo could very well still possess, and so he nodded and stepped farther into the apartment before he'd be in trouble.

True to Minseok's word, Kyungsoo was still in the kitchen, setting the table to absolute perfection as if the president was coming over for dinner instead of Baekhyun. He wiped the sweat off his brow with the towel he had swung over his shoulder and then looked up to spot his ‘two guests' as they walked in. 

His eyes went to Minseok first, his face breaking out in the biggest grin Baekhyun had possibly ever seen on him, and only then did he look at Baekhyun too. "Baek! It's been a while," he beamed, straightening himself as he threw the towel on the countertop and made his way around the table. 

As he walked over to them he got rid of the apron that had been tied around his waist, and Baekhyun expected the hug he was about to get from Kyungsoo.

Ever since the start of the year, ever since the breakup, they had grown much closer. Kyungsoo had turned from the quiet, angry-looking guy to a much softer, more involved friend. There were times where Baekhyun would come hang out with only him, on nights when Minseok would be at work, and well, that hadn't been a thing before shit had gone down in Baekhyun's life. 

"It has," Baekhyun confirmed as he bent down slightly to return the hug, arms around Kyungsoo's waist a he did, "I'm really sorry about it too, but work has been very demanding. With the whole promotion thing and all of that, you know?" 

He had known the question was coming before Minseok excitedly let it slip from his lips, his hand demandingly tugging on Baekhyun's wrist in the process, "oh, oh! Did you get it? The promotion?" It was as if he had forgotten that the results of the promotions had been released the day before, right before Baekhyun had closed up shop for Christmas Eve.

Minseok hadn't called once his shift had ended, to his surprise, but he had figured maybe they had wanted to wait until they saw him in person, in case it wasn't good news he'd have for them. Baekhyun however, smiled at his friends, which was all the confirmation they needed for them to burst into a round of congratulations.

"Hell yeah! Manager Byun Baekhyun of Supreme New York, location Seoul!" Minseok whooped, pumping a fist into the air while Kyungsoo clapped along with him.

Bowing politely in thanks, Baekhyun felt himself grow shy as the spotlight was turned on him. He knew it was a big deal and that this position was important, but he didn’t want to focus on that, even though he was aware of how over the past few months things had changed a lot for him.

Over the span of half a year he had gone from quitting his job at the bar, to starting as a simple sales person at Surpreme’s shop, to being a manager of the international branch. Who would have guessed that was where he’d end up?

"Thank you," Baekhyun replied, quick to wave it off like it was nothing. The last thing he wanted was to make a fuss of it and have them talk about him for too long. His life wasn’t exactly his favourite subject for small talk. "Anyway, where do I sit?" He asked to divert the attention away from him.

Kyungsoo jumped to the occasion immediately, stepping aside to pull the nearest chair away so Baekhyun could sit down. He had changed the seating of the round table in such a way that it was just the three of them there, all having their own space, most of which was taken by the collection of dishes spread out anyway.

"There you go," Kyungsoo helped him sit properly before he moved to the next chair to do the same for Minseok, giving him the chair on Baekhyun's right. His hand lingered on Minseok's shoulder, squeezing it as he dropped a kiss to his boyfriend’s head, and Baekhyun watched his best friend light up completely. 

Seeing them act cutely together, it left him feeling suspicious still, and he tilted his head as he followed Kyungsoo with his eyes as he sat down too, their group being complete now. He let his gaze roam between the two of them, noticing the way they weren't looking at each other, and he chuckled and finally dared to ask, "okay, what the hell is up with you two?" 

Minseok's head shot up, his eyes slightly widened as he made a surprised, "huh?" sound all while he watched Baekhyun as if they had gotten caught in the act, when really, why could he possibly feel that way? Was Baekhyun right to think something was up?

Kyungsoo was doing his little avoiding trick, making sure to look anywhere but at Baekhyun, thus making the fallen one even more sceptical. Baekhyun scanned them both for signs of what was going on, almost coming up blank, but then he saw it: the thing that had clearly gotten them this happy and had made them this affectionate.

Baekhyun watched the way Kyungsoo was playing with his finger, his ring finger to be precise, and the longer he looked at the sight, the more it fell into place. Because Kyungsoo was wearing a ring, an actual ring, something Baekhyun had never seen on him before.

He gasped, turning his gaze to Minseok, who he ordered, "show me your hands!"

He reached out his own, waiting for his best friend to put his in his open palms so he could see, but Minseok blushed and stuttered while he stuck his hands between his legs instead.

"What? Why?" He asked, blinking at the fallen one with an innocence that Baekhyun hadn't known he could fake so well. Too bad for him that he already knew, there was now way for him to escape it now. 

Baekhyun waved his hands in front of Minseok’s face, showing his impatience, and waited for his friend to give in and show him already, "come on, what's the problem? Why can't you give me your hands?" he asked a little teasingly, smiling at Minseok to encourage him at the same time.

His friend kept his eyes on him for another few seconds before he looked away and lifted his hands, placing them in Baekhyun's very carefully and a little too slowly. Baekhyun clamped the hands down in his and let his eyes trail down to Minseok's fingers where he saw, sparkling on his left hand, another ring.

They were both wearing rings, Minseok and Kyungsoo, and Baekhyun felt his heart both surge and drop at the same time. 

He tried to push aside any thoughts about the one person he didn't want to think about right now, the one that was likely the reason of why Minseok had tried to keep this a secret in the first place, because all he wanted was to join in on their celebrations. 

"Oh my god," Baekhyun blurted, taking a deep breath before he looked up at Minseok's worried-looking face. He was biting his lip, brows furrowed and his shoulders tense as if he expected that this would make Baekhyun blow up in any way, as if he would explode into a million pieces. He didn't, he only stuttered, "you're wearing rings."

Minseok nodded slowly, relaxing again bit by bit as he saw that Baekhyun wasn't going off at him or looked like he was about to burst into tears any second now. "Kyungsoo gave it to me yesterday, as my Christmas present. He- he sort of proposed? Well, as far as that works for us," Minseok chuckled quietly, "it's really just a promise to each other."

Kyungsoo hummed to confirm this explanation, "yeah that’s it. To be honest, I was getting frustrated with the amount of times he gets hit on when he’s at the bar so I decided to put a ring on it, even though no one knows we're not actually married. To the two of us it's real even without the official papers." 

He reached out for Minseok, and so Baekhyun let go of his friend's hands, watched as the couple entwined their fingers. He hated how the two of them looked guilty for displaying such affection in front of him. He hated it more how they actually had a good reason to.

"I'm sorry, we didn't want to make you think of _him_ too much," Minseok explained exactly why he dropped their clasped hands from view, holding them underneath the table instead as if that was going to change anything. As if anything at all was going to change the fact that it was Christmas and he'd be having flashbacks all day, whether his friends would put their love on display or not. 

He waved it off knowing he wasn't doing a very good job of hiding his true feelings, but he didn't want them to hide just because he was around, "don't worry too much about it. I've dealt with the daily breakdowns for close to eleven months, the two of you being happy isn't going to make me fall apart the way it would have done back when he left me." 

With a short nod, the two of them let the topic slip, which Baekhyun was thankful for because all it had done was make him think again. Who would _he_ be with today? Had he given anyone a ring too? Most of all, was he still thinking about Baekhyun at all or was he relieved he had finally left all of that behind him? 

Baekhyun lifted the glass of wine that had already been put there for him before and he took a sip, swallowing back down his heart along with the alcohol, and he put on a smile in the hopes he wouldn’t worry his friends any longer, “I’m fine. Also, I’m starving, so please feed me Kyungsoo.”

Kyungsoo stood up, his chair screeching as it was pushed back, and he let go of Minseok’s hand so he could point at all the dishes, “yeah, sure, of course,” he fussed, “feel free to take whatever you want. I made a lot of different things, not because I don’t know what you like but just because I could. It’s Christmas.”

They all briefly laughed at the stuttering before Kyungsoo lifted one of the dishes so he could put some on Baekhyun’s plate, “this is my favourite though. I’m sure I’ve cooked it for you before, but I didn’t spend as much time on it then so I hope you notice it tastes better this time around.”

He served all of them some of the food and then sat down, ordering them to take more when they felt like it. They all went silent as they focused on their food, taking a minute to enjoy it before Baekhyun decided to break the silence with some compliments for Kyungsoo. The food was indeed amazing, so it wasn’t a lie either.

Kyungsoo grinned and Minseok laughed, a little too relieved, and then all of them were just laughing. They kept making each other laugh louder and louder, until Baekhyun was close to tears and Kyungsoo looked like his eyes had disappeared behind his cheeks.

Baekhyun went to take a sip of his drink, hoping it would calm him down, but instead he almost choked. The mood slowly turned lighter from it all, and the conversation became easier too.

"How's Tae-ho?" Minseok asked while he ate, referring to the demon’s well-being now that he was spending more time on earth. Tae-ho spent at least a day a week with Baekhyun nowadays, a tradition that had started back in winter, after the worst month had passed, and it was still tradition now.

Minseok knew about it, about how Tae-ho was still quite a big part of Baekhyun’s life, yet it didn't worry him. He was smart enough to know he'd always be Baekhyun's best friend and the one he would come to first, that hadn't changed even after Baekhyun had quit his job at the bar. 

Minseok also knew that Baekhyun's relationship to Tae-ho was a little complicated. They weren't dating, yet they weren't nothing either. Especially during the summer, things had gotten rather heated, and for a while Baekhyun had lost track of the days gone by as he was consumed only by work and the feeling of Tae-ho's body sticking to his.

If they were to put a name to it, to call it ‘dating’, which it really wasn't worthy of, they would have been dating for longer than Baekhyun had dated _him._  

"He's fine. He came over last night after my shift. Turns out some demon was planning a riot with a quite large group of supporters, their goal being to kill Lucifer, and Tae-ho had figured it out before anything had happened. So now he's gained even more power, which means he can drop by more often without it being a problem.”

Baekhyun decided not to bother them with all the details, knowing only Kyungsoo would be getting them, and it wasn’t like it was important anyway. The short explanation was enough to create a heavy silence just as well, and Baekhyun knew exactly what his friends were thinking too.

Kyungsoo was the one to ask the question that Baekhyun was sure had been on Minseok’s mind for quite a while now, but neither of them had actually dared to ask. “So are you two a thing then? Have you fallen for him?” the prince of hell asked, knowing well enough about the business there to know that if Tae-ho was gaining power, he’d become dangerous and much darker than he already was.

Yet Tae-ho was always soft and sweet whenever he was around Baekhyun, like the old times where they had both been close to nothing when it came to the ranks of hell. It was as if none of those titles existed when they were together, just the two of them, when Tae-ho only had eyes for him.

“What?” he asked, startled by the question, and he blinked rapidly as he let it run past him. Were they a thing? Had Baekhyun developed feelings for Tae-ho? He hadn’t ever really stopped to ask himself those questions and it left him blank now, “I- why does it matter?”

He looked down at his plate with a grim expression, his mind no longer able to leave out the thoughts about Chanyeol now, because in order to decide whether he had feelings for Tae-ho he would have to compare him to the only person Baekhyun had ever had feelings for before him.

“It does to him,” Kyungsoo stated, “I’m pretty sure that soon enough he’ll demand for you to be by his side, back in hell, once the power will get to his head. When he does it’s important you’ve got an answer ready for him.”

Baekhyun shook his head, “he won’t do that. He knows I want to stay here, I refused to go back to heaven for a reason.” He was being stern in answering, and it got him put back in his place rather quickly, as Minseok replied to that, sharp as a knife, with a, “yes, and that reason was Chanyeol.”

Tightening his jaw, Baekhyun balled his hands into fists under the table. This was going the wrong way. It wasn’t how he wanted to spend his Christmas, fighting with his best friends. Things were supposed to be airy and light, void of emotions, so Baekhyun could forget for a little while. Kyungsoo shouldn’t have asked such a complex question, but they had him cornered now and they knew it.

“It wasn’t, it was the fact that I wanted to live my own life,” he replied instantly, sounding a tad angry as he did.

“Yes, that and Chanyeol,” Minseok confirmed before he took his glass of wine and raised it to his lips. He stared at Baekhyun as if to say ‘I dare you to prove me wrong’ and for once the fallen one hated how his friend had the guts to behave like this.

Rather than arguing more, which he knew would both be pointless and impossible, because he had no arguments left to throw back, he threw back his head and laughed.

“God, can we please not today? I don’t want to fucking think about Park motherfucking Chanyeol,”he burst out, “I don’t care for Tae-ho like I did for him, no, but I’m also not a heartless person just stringing him along. It can’t be compared, that’s not fair.”

“Okay, but if Chanyeol were to show up tomorrow, telling you he made a mistake and that he lied about not loving you, would you take him back or would you stay with Tae-ho?” Kyungsoo asked him, straight to the point, making him choose between the two. It wasn’t fair, they couldn’t expect him to actually answer that. The situation was way too complicated to do so.

“I- I don’t know,” Baekhyun admitted honestly, “it would all depend on what he’d say and- and-“ he couldn’t find the words. There were none, he couldn’t decide. It was an impossible choice, but to Kyungsoo it was enough of an answer.

“Then it means you’re not in love with Tae-ho,” he concluded simply, picking up his chopsticks again so he could get back to his food. Baekhyun watched him in both shock and anger, ready to throw all his arguments his way, but there were none. He simply had nothing to say to this, because it was true. Even after all this time, it was still Chanyeol who owned his heart.

Kyungsoo talked around the mouthful of noodles, pretending like none of this was difficult at all, “make sure he knows that, Baek, or this could turn ugly.”

Baekhyun dropped his head back down, his eyebrows furrowing together, and he grumbled quietly, “it won’t. I’ve got it under control, it will be fine. Chanyeol won’t be back anyway.” He hated how the tiniest flame of hope had gotten oxygen thanks to Kyungsoo’s suggestion, and now he’d have to kill it again bit by bit by telling himself that his ex-boyfriend really won’t come back for him.

“Alright, if you say so. He might not, no, but that doesn’t make it okay to play with Tae-ho’s feelings,” Kyungsoo shrugged, making Baekhyun feel guilty about the fact that he wasn’t in love with the demon.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried, he had realised how much easier it would be to love the one that would love him wholeheartedly in return, the one that already did, but he couldn’t. That man wasn’t Chanyeol, and so he couldn’t give himself completely. Because Chanyeol had Baekhyun’s heart, and without his heart, Baekhyun wouldn’t ever be complete again.

Baekhyun only hummed, going back to his food even though most his hunger had disappeared. It gave him a reason not to speak any longer, though, and for that he was thankful. His friends had a point, they always did, but just for once Baekhyun had wanted to go a day without thinking about what he had lost. He should have known today would not be that day, but he had still hoped.

Minseok seemed to sense how his boyfriend had taken it a bit too far, and he tried to lift their spirits again by kicking Baekhyun’s shin under the table and nudging his head towards the bag he had brought along with him, “anyway, are those presents? Did you get me a present? It better be good you know, or I won’t be giving you yours!”

Baekhyun appreciated how he was trying, but it didn’t do much for his mood. He reached out for his bag, the previous excitement that had been there to share the presents now gone, but he hoped that seeing the smiles on his friend’s faces would make it better. It was the first time he got to buy actual Christmas presents for them, making enough money now to live a stable life.

He owed them much more than the simple presents that were inside, but he’d start repaying them bit by bit now. He wasn’t sure there was anything good enough to pay off his debts, anyway. He had been so broken and had needed them so much that it would take a lifetime to settle it. But he would, lifetime or not.

Baekhyun handed the envelope to Minseok and watched as Kyungsoo scooted closer to look over his shoulder. His best friend pulled off the ribbon that had been tied around it, and slowly but surely he folded back the sides to show the cheque that was inside.

As both of their eyes widened, Baekhyun sighed and looked down at the table, “it’s an all-expenses paid trip to Japan for the both of you. As a thank you for all your kindness and an expression of my love for you. I want you to spend some time together, just the two of you. Coincidentally, you could see it as a sort of honeymoon I suppose.”

Baekhyun smiled as he heard the stuttering mess that Minseok had become, and he waved it off instantly, “I’ll take up some shifts at the bar, not like I forgot how to do that, and I’ve already covered it with Jongin too. There’s nothing for you to worry about, okay? Just accept it and promise me you’ll enjoy yourselves.”

Kyungsoo was smiling, jumping in his chair as he thought about it, and he turned Minseok’s head towards him so he could kiss his still-spluttering boyfriend. Or husband, whatever they preferred now.

Minseok stopped struggling and let himself be kissed for a moment before he turned his head back to look at Baekhyun dazedly, “you shouldn’t have. All we did for you was because we care, it’s not something you have to repay.” He was being the kind and generous friend Baekhyun knew him as, and although it suited him at other times, right now all it did was make Baekhyun mad.

“Yah, will you just accept it already!” He threw his hands in the air and huffed, shaking his head in disbelief, “it’s for both of you, it’s really no big deal. It’s better than the stupid tie I got you last year. I’m making up for everything, okay, and if you won’t accept this, I will only get you a bigger present next time.”

Minseok pouted slightly, his lips parted as if he wanted to argue with Baekhyun, but he stopped and instead clicked his tongue in displeasure. Putting the cheque down on the table he raised his hand as if he was about to slap Baekhyun, and he sounded equally as annoyed as him as he replied, “aish, you fool. My present is already next to nothing now that you gave us this, don’t make it worse.”

When his best friend got up, Baekhyun expected it to be so he could hit him, but Minseok pushed his chair aside and walked over to he could tug the fallen one up out of his own. No fists were thrown, no pain inflicted upon him. Instead he was pulled into an embrace, a warm and loving one, and Baekhyun was left startled.

“Thank you,” Minseok replied against Baekhyun’s shoulder, rocking them from side to side, “we really appreciate it and you know we wish we could make things better for you, too. We’ll keep trying, Baek, until you get there. Best friends will never give up.”

Baekhyun nodded, closing his eyes before he dropped his forehead to Minseok’s shoulder in return, letting himself have this one hug. Or two, because seconds later another pair of arms wrapped around him, around him and Minseok.

“Group hug!” Kyungsoo brought out after he had dropped a kiss to both of their heads, squeezing them tight, and Baekhyun smiled brightly.

Happiness could be found in the small things. In giving someone a present they loved, in a smile or a hug, in pure friendship that was stronger than anything. Baekhyun wasn’t blessed with love, but he was blessed with the two most wonderful friends he could have asked for, and that was the one thing that he was thankful for this Christmas.

~

"Baekhyun!" Sehun walked up to him with open arms, smiling brightly and looking much more grown up than he had done the last time Baekhyun had seen him, only a few months ago. Since he had last been there, the hairdresser had cut his hair. The new look was shorter and dyed in a soft orange, making him appear older than he was. 

"Hi Sehun," Baekhyun grinned back as he let himself be embraced by the energetic puppy in front of him, Sehun’s hold squeezing him tightly as if to say he had missed him, "you look good with that new cut. Junmyeon must be having a hard time letting you leave the apartment looking this fine."

Sehun laughed at his comment, holding onto Baekhyun's arms as he stepped back again so he could look at him, "I know, right. He's caught himself a diamond, but he knows he doesn’t have to be worried. I’m his no matter how many people try to snatch me away."

He clicked his tongue jokingly and then laughed it off as he guided Baekhyun to a chair to sit him down. “Come on then, let’s get you seated,” Sehun said as he patted his friend’s shoulders to force him to sit. Baekhyun could hear the excitement in his voice already and it was cute in a way, made him roll his eyes and smile as he did as ordered.

While Sehun went to get himself his stool, Baekhyun looked at himself in the gigantic mirror that was hard to escape. The sight wasn’t pretty, not now that Baekhyun wasn’t wearing a layer of make-up to hide all his flaws.

His hair was long, much too long, and it was back to the boring colour it had originally been; Jaehyun’s colour. It had taken some time to grow out the blonde and Baekhyun had tried to do so naturally, which had been working fine until Sehun had spotted him out on the streets with roots that almost gave him a heartattack.

He had dyed it back to the colour matching his roots and now it was still that colour, even months later with close to two inches of length added to it. Baekhyun didn’t like it, but he didn’t want to go back to blonde either. He was only here because he was getting annoyed with how his fringe kept blocking his view, and because his promotion meant he’d have to look his best.

And looking his best was far from an achievable goal, Baekhyun realised as he stared at himself. Right now he looked tired and pale, no excitement, only boredom, and when Sehun rolled himself in front of Baekhyun and really looked at him, he seemed to notice it too.

The hairdresser tipped his head to the side and let his eyes roam across Baekhyun's face, taking him in thoroughly, and then he concluded, "hmm, you've changed."

He leaned in to touch Baekhyun's hair, lifting the strands on the side and brushing his fingers through the fallen one’s fringe to check the length and the state it was in, "I was wondering whether you had gone to see someone else, it's been that long since I last saw you." 

Baekhyun chuckled and rolled his eyes, “like I’d dare to go somewhere else when I can have the best of the best. No, Sehun, I wouldn’t do such a thing, I’ve just been caught up in life. I’ve been busy trying to put myself back together again, made some career changes too, so yeah, that takes time.”

Sehun nodded and hummed in understanding while his eyes trailed on, down to the fallen one's neck this time, where he spotted the month old tattoo Baekhyun now had. His eyes widened at the sight of it, but Baekhyun had expected it. It wasn’t exactly something he could hide, and people would always look at it when they first saw him.

The tattoo covered the left side of his neck, where the thickest part of the scar tissue had been. It had been a hell to get it done, especially the scar tissue itself, but Baekhyun had grit his teeth through it all and it had been worth it too. He loved the result, loved what it turned out to be and he kept staring at it in the mirror day after day, the same way Sehun was staring at him now. 

"You got a tattoo," his friend stated, not even questioned, simply stated. He tilted Baekhyun's head to the side to examine it better, not even asking for permission, and he sounded amazed as he asked, "why? Why did you get it? What does it mean?" as he traced a careful finger down the birds's feathers that decorated his skin now. 

"I did," Baekhyun replied, his head still tilted back so he stared at the ceiling as he spoke, "I got it on- on Chanyeol's birthday, which was a little over a month ago.” Saying his ex-boyfriend’s name still stung, even though it wasn’t as difficult now as it had been at first. He usually refrained from it, but the tattoo had given him some strength.

He knew what parts Sehun was touching, his finger lightly sliding across Baekhyun’s skin as he traced the lines of a wing. Baekhyun swallowed and with closed eyes before he blinked up at the ceiling again, “I had been frustrated with my scars for a while already, but then his birthday came and I was in the worst mood, hating myself, so I went out and eventually I found myself at a tattoo shop, seated in the chair.”

Sehun let go of Baekhyun’s face at once and he straightened himself on his stool. He was still looking at the ink on Baekhyun’s neck, but he was no longer touching it. He huffed, crossing his arms as if he didn’t understand, “so you got this randomly? Out of the blue? That’s risky, what if you come to regret it?”

Baekhyun shook his head, folding his hands in his lap before he looked down, forcing Sehun to look away from his neck that way, “no, not exactly. It had been on my mind for a while already, which was probably how I ended up at the tattoo shop in the first place. It would have been strange if I had gone there without the intention of getting a tattoo, it was just that my unconsciousness sent me there in the end.”

Baekhyun shrugged, “I knew exactly what I wanted to get, and it has meaning, but it’s not something I’m going to share with everyone. No offense to you, of course, but it’s kind of personal.” He looked up at Sehun with a smile, hoping he’d understand how he didn’t mean to be rude.  

The point was that Sehun didn’t know everything about him, about his lives in heaven and hell, and so explaining how the two sparrows in his neck represented the two souls that had occupied the body that was seated in front of him, it would be difficult.

The scar in his neck was where one life had ended and another had started, and so the tattoo was an homage to that. In a way it was to thank Jaehyun for giving him this opportunity while at the same time it was meant to represent the closure he hadn’t been able to find with regards to being in this body.

One of the birds, representing Jaehyun, had black, white and purple colours in its feathers, colours to symbolise death. Its eyes were closed and its wings were behind its head, meaning that life had ended for him.

The other bird, representing Baekhyun, had red, yellow and green in its feathers, colours to symbolise life. Its eyes were opened, its wings spread wide in mid-flight and it was holding onto an olive leaf twig, a symbol of the peace he had made with himself and the wars he had waged within.

The drawings were simple and beautiful, the colours subtle, and Baekhyun absolutely loved it. He had known that it was a risky thing to do, considering where the tattoo was placed, and his boss had been shocked at first, but when no customers showed any concern, everyone quickly accepted it. Some people wouldn’t understand anyway, and Baekhyun could no longer find it in himself to care.

Kyungsoo had said that it somehow fit him. Baekhyun made the whole thing work with a matching pair of fashionable, round glasses that he didn’t really need. It was the complete style that made people accept it, and some thought he had gotten it only to make a statement. None of them, except for Kyungsoo, Minseok and Tae-ho knew just how much it meant to him.

“Alright, well,” Sehun clearly didn’t know what to say, he clearly wasn’t a big fan, or so it sounded, but Baekhyun didn’t care whether he did or didn’t, “it matches your wrist tattoo. I like the style you chose, even though I feel sad knowing you won’t ever make a model now.”

Baekhyun chuckled at that and shrugged his shoulders as Sehun got behind him, “that’s okay, I never wanted to be a model anyway.” Was that really what Sehun was thinking about now? “It’s okay if you don’t like it, you don’t have to, but you’ll probably understand that one of the reasons I got it is because it hides the worst of my scar and gives me confidence that way.”

Sehun had never asked about the scar, even though he had seen it up close plenty of times, but Baekhyun figured whatever story he had made up for himself was better than the lie Baekhyun would have to come up with in order to explain it, anyway. The guy was kind like that, not asking the obvious questions others would have asked and leaving it up to Baekhyun to share whatever he wanted to share.

“I understand,” Sehun nodded as he sat himself down on his stool again and rolled over to face Baekhyun, this time with a comb and scissors in hand, “I do feel, however, that you need a haircut that fits you more. You’ve got this whole sort of rock and roll thing going, with the tattoos and the outfit, yet your hair lacks all of that.”

Baekhyun sighed, stared at himself in the mirror again, and noticed how sad he looked with his hair falling limply around his face. Sehun was right, he was missing something. Right now his hair looked like a joke compared to the rest of him, it was why he was there of course, but he had no clue what to do about it. “Fine, what are you suggesting then?” he asked Sehun, who began smiling instantly.

“Ah! Asking for my advice, thank god,” he turned around, twirling on his stool, and put down his scissors on his cart, “I would love to give it, but what I’d love more is for you to give me full control and let me do my magic. Like the way you did when I first picked you right off the streets, remember? Like, trust me, I know just what would fit you.”

Baekhyun felt a little sceptical about giving Sehun full control, even though he himself had no clue what he wanted, and so he decided to find some middle ground that would leave both of them in control by setting one demand, “alright, I will give you artistic freedom, on one condition: you have to keep in mind that I am now the branch manager of Supreme and that not everything will be accepted there.”

Sehun stopped all he was doing and he turned back around to face Baekhyun, eyes wide and mouth dropped open, “wait… _You’re_ the new manager?” he asked, “I heard about it from one of the idols of SMtown, they always share those things so I can scout new customers,” he rolled himself closer as he spoke, “but I never once thought you- what the hell Baekhyun!? Holy shit, this changes everything.”

Baekhyun blinked as Sehun rolled himself away again and started putting away some of the stuff he had prepared only a minute before. “They selected you with _that_ hair? I must be a god then, because it is much too bland for someone working in the fashion industry, it must have been the cut that saved you,” he was shaking his head at himself, “I can’t believe it.”

While he rolled himself around to take and bring new supplies, Baekhyun watched him, feeling slightly out of it. What the hell was this all supposed to mean? What was Sehun about to do to him? What did someone working in fashion look like? Was it very different from the normal ‘managers’ that Baekhyun knew about? 

“Uhm,” he brought out, feeling unsure when Sehun turned him away from the mirror, “what are you doing? Sehun I swear if they will fire me for my hair I will kill you.”

The hairdresser only huffed, obviously feeling insulted by Baekhyun’s lack of trust in his abilities, “as if they’d dare. I will come for them if they do and they won’t like it. I’m the expert here, I will make every idol and buyer want to be with you, no more than that – I will make everyone want to _be_ you. Just you trust me!”

Baekhyun could hear him crack his knuckles behind him before a comb found its way into Baekhyun’s hair, and that was that. Without waiting for more, Sehun had started getting to it, concentrated on the work of art he felt he was about to create, and so they didn’t talk for a while, not until Baekhyun’s hair was covered up, lathered in dye, and he had to wait for it to set.

Sehun got them both a cup of tea while they waited, and rather than leaving him there in order to go and help some other customer, he sat with Baekhyun too.

“So,” he said after he put down his mug, realising the tea was still too hot for him to drink, “is it still too soon to ask about Chanyeol, or will you finally talk to me about him?”

Baekhyun dropped his gaze, felt the shock of hearing his name the way he always did, and the pain was instant. He hated it, hated how despite it had been close to a year now, Baekhyun had still not been able to move on. There were still nights where he dreamed they were together, dreams where Chanyeol would come back to him too, and those always left him a mess.

Inside his chest that gaping hole was ever present, with nothing to fill it either, and whatever substitute he found for his heart, it would always be gone again before it could settle. Not even Tae-ho could fill it, he didn’t even come close, even though he tried. Both of them tried.

“I guess I should be moving on, right? I have someone new in my life, after all,” Baekhyun sighed and set down his cup on the table next to his chair, “you could say we’re dating, even though we don’t call it that, but it’s hard for me. I don’t love him the way I loved Chanyeol, I’m not sure I ever will.”

Ever since Christmas, since he had been forced to think about his feelings as Kyungsoo and Minseok had asked him about them, he had come to accept it. No matter how he hoped for it, he would never love Tae-ho as much as Chanyeol. If he could have, he would have done so back in hell.

“Of course you don’t,” Sehun replied easily, like he had already known that much, “you weren’t the one that ended your relationship, that was him. Things are still unresolved for you because of it, and you can’t move on when that’s the case.”

Sehun was making a fair point, one that Baekhyun was pretty aware of too, but there was simply no way to fix it. Knowing what was wrong wasn’t going to change the fact that he was feeling it. “Yeah, I know, but I can’t exactly find a way to resolve it now, can I? He’s gone, has been gone for months, you know that. Whatever chance I had at mending things to a point where it would be bearable for me, he took that when he left.”

Huffing at Baekhyun, Sehun rolled his eyes. He picked up a cookie from the plate meant for customers and snapped it in half, handing Baekhyun one half of it. Then he held his side up in the air, making Baekhyun look at it, “so, see. This half of the cookie is Chanyeol, your half is you.”

Then, as if it was supposed to make sense, Sehun stuffed his mouth with his half of the cookie and chewed loudly before he swallowed it down.

As Baekhyun blinked, confused with what it was supposed to mean, Sehun reached out and snapped off a tiny piece of Baekhyun’s cookie, eating that as well. “Hey!” he argued, frowning as he pulled the remaining part of his cookie towards him, and Sehun smiled.

“Exactly! That’s it!” he clapped his hands as if Baekhyun had done exactly what he had wished him to, “don’t you see it? Chanyeol left and took your heart with him, right?” he asked it as if he didn’t know already, but Baekhyun figured he was linking it to the cookie now, showing how the piece he had broken off had been Baekhyun’s heart.

He nodded slowly, still keeping his cookie close to him, and Sehun pointed at it as he did, “your first response is to keep whatever is left of you close to you, like you are doing with the cookie now. You lost your heart and in your desperation to keep everything else in place, you backed off. You spent the past months doing nothing but hiding your cookie from view, but it’s not the same. It went stale, soft too.”

Baekhyun frowned, demonstratively bringing the cookie away from himself, and he tried to think about it the way Sehun was painting it. “So? If that’s it then what does it matter? It’s not like the cookie will ever be fresh again, it won’t ever be the same.”

Sehun snapped his fingers and leaned in closer to grin at Baekhyun, “exactly.” He stayed close, eyes burning into Baekhyun’s, “it’s already stale, which means that you, have nothing to lose. And see, my half of the cookie is out of sight, but it’s not really gone now, is it? You know where it went to, along with your heart. All you have to do is go get it back.”

Baekhyun raised his eyebrows and laughed then, feeling Sehun had gone crazy with this whole thing. For a second it had made sense, but now, now Sehun was talking crap. “Get it back? Sehun, you’re comparing a cookie going down your stomach to a real life person. Chanyeol has his own mind, unlike that cookie, you can’t say it’s the same.”

Sehun, in turn, crossed his arms in front of his chest and stared at Baekhyun as if he felt offended for how his intelligence was being questioned, “Oh, come on, Baek. You can’t tell me you don’t know where he went to? I thought you were smarter than that. Did you never really think about it or are you really that much of an idiot?”

The question made Baekhyun go quiet, his whole world freezing as he realised he hadn’t actually spent that much time thinking about where Chanyeol had gone off to. The letter had told him not to come and look for him, the letter had broken him to a point where he hadn’t wanted to look even if he could, and ever since, Baekhyun hadn’t ever thought about it again.

But now that he did, now that Sehun had made him think of it, there was only one place he knew where Chanyeol could have run off to. One place Baekhyun knew he would feel at home, one place where he wouldn’t have to start over fresh completely: Anyang.

The sudden revelation of this startled him, because how could he not have thought of this before? All this time he could have gone out and look for him, but the pain and the fact that Chanyeol had told him not to had held him back. He could have, but should he have? Should he now?

“I don’t think I should go looking for him, Sehun,” Baekhyun eventually stated, his hands trembling slightly with shock still as he raised his cup again, “I’d like to think I’ve moved on enough to let it rest. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much he’s hurt me.”

And it was the truth, he didn’t want to see Chanyeol and remember, but that wasn’t all. Part of it was fear. Baekhyun was afraid of what he’d find there. He didn’t want to go to Anyang and find Chanyeol dating someone else, having dumped Baekhyun’s heart with the trash months before.

The possibility was there, of course, because no one wanted to be alone for long. Chanyeol had lasted a year after Jaehyun, and with the date of their breakup quickly approaching, it was possible he had had enough time to move on from him. Hell, if he had never cared about Baekhyun in the first place he could have gotten over him a while ago already.

Baekhyun understood that no one wanted to be alone, because he sure didn’t. It was why he had Tae-ho in his life, even though he didn’t love the demon, and so he’d understand it if Chanyeol had found someone new too. It made sense, but he just didn’t want to see it.

“Bullshit,” Sehun threw back, dragging Baekhyun out of his thoughts, before he got up to take a look at how far the dye was. A second later he sat back down, not yet satisfied with what Baekhyun’s hair looked like, and he continued his rant, “even if that’s true, if you’re really over him, you should go there and flaunt it. If you’re happy, with your new job and with Tae-ho, go show him how over him you are. Go take back your heart. That’s the only way you can dump that stale cookie and bake up a new batch.”

The whole cookie thing no longer made any sense, but Baekhyun got what Sehun was saying regardless. He was telling Baekhyun that no matter the outcome, he should go and confront his demons. The fear of seeing Chanyeol happy with someone else, he’d have to see it in order to let go of him.

Without tying knots to the ends of the strings that had been cut by his ex-boyfriend, they would always hurt. Like nerve-endings on display, enduring pain with every touch, he had to make sure they’d get covered up.

Chanyeol had been able to end things on his terms, which was unfair to Baekhyun. So yes, no matter the outcome, he wouldn’t be able to move on without seeing Chanyeol one final time.

It wasn’t like Baekhyun expected it to result in them getting back together, anyway. The point was that whether he’d find a way to deal with it or whether it would be more painful, he had to get rid of the splinter in the wound first before he could really start healing. He knew Sehun had a point because he had been trying for eleven months to grow around it and it hadn’t worked.

If he really wanted to give Tae-ho a chance, if he really wanted to forget about his first love, he’d need a proper ending to their story. Not this whole I-left-you-without-giving-you-a-chance-to-speak-for-yourself shit Chanyeol had left him with.

Still the idea of seeking him out was frightening. Going to see Chanyeol after so long, after almost a year, knowing that he still owned Baekhyun’s heart, it was terrifying. Baekhyun worried that maybe seeing Chanyeol would bring back all the heartache he had felt those first months and that it would leave him having to start from there again and he really wasn’t sure he’d survive another round of that.

“I’ll think about it,” Baekhyun promised, “will that be enough?” he asked, quietly signalling that Sehun should change the topic, but the hairdresser didn’t. He was nothing but stubborn, Baekhyun knew that much, and right now he hated it.

Sehun rolled Baekhyun back to the mirror where he had been, apparently now satisfied with the colour underneath the foil. He didn’t face Baekhyun, only waited for him to meet his gaze through the mirror, and then he told him, “someone as fierce as you, coming from the streets and working his way up to be the branch manager of Supreme. The guy covered in tattoos, yet he’s so kind and thoughtful. You’re letting _him_ ruin you? You’re letting _him_ be the source of your tears and pain, of your self-doubt?”

He had started to uncover Baekhyun’s hair, but the fallen one couldn’t see what he had done to it yet. He wasn’t done talking yet, either. “I don’t understand why you gave someone else such power over your life. Lover or not, you deserve to take your heart back. If he doesn’t want it, he should return it. He was an idiot to leave you, but you were an idiot to let him.”

Baekhyun opened his mouth to disagree, to state how that didn’t make him an idiot, but at that exact moment his hair was revealed and he froze in utter astonishment. He couldn’t move, not his arms nor his mouth, because his hair, the dark mess it had been, was now bright red.

“Sehun!” Baekhyun screamed, his voice so loud he was sure every other customer was looking at him. Sehun, having had expected this, jumped aside to get away from any possible fists flying his way.

Baekhyun’s hands were on his chair though, squeezing tightly as he looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like a clown, his hair a mess, or so it felt, and he forget all about Chanyeol and what they had been talking about as he brought his hands up through it.

“It’s fucking red!” he yelled, feeling himself run short of breath, and he heard Sehun chuckle even though the guy knew he was in trouble now. Baekhyun couldn’t have red hair, who would take him seriously now? Honestly, he shouldn’t have trusted Sehun to begin with. Perfect image or not, the hairdresser shouldn’t only think of what he liked, but also of what Baekhyun himself wanted.

“I know,” Sehun said tentatively, “it’s the newest trend. It really fits the whole mood you’re going for, with the tattoo and everything. Now all I have to do is cut it.” He was trying to ignore how Baekhyun clearly wasn’t a fan of the look, pretending like it was all good, and Baekhyun let out a deep breath as he uselessly tried to calm himself down.

“Sehun!” he repeated, growling the name as his hands reached out to grab a hold of the guy, but Sehun was too far away still, “undo this, right now! I swear to god, I will definitely get fired because of you now. For fuck’s sake, I’ve only had this job for a little while!” he grumbled loudly, something which made Sehun laugh harder.

“See? I knew red would suit your temper,” he said, making Baekhyun suddenly deflate like a balloon, and he fell back in his chair feeling desperation wash over him, making his whole body go limp. “Oh come on, give it some time,” Sehun encouraged him, “It’ll grow on you. I can’t dye it back now anyway. Give it three days, if you still hate it then, I’ll dye it back to black for you.”

Baekhyun narrowed his eyes at the hairdresser, wondering if the guy was a demon in disguise as well, because he sure acted like one. Tae-ho would like him, Baekhyun was sure of it, but to him his life was more important, and life included a job and income, something this hair was going to take away from him for sure, “absolutely not! I’m not leaving here looking like this!”

Sehun cocked one hip to the side and placed his hand on it, his eyes suddenly turning darker and more serious, like he was done playing this lightly. He pointed the index finger of his other hand in Baekhyun’s direction and told him, “now you listen to me, Baekhyun. I have never, not ever, had an unsatisfied customer. You will give it three days and if you don’t, if I see you with dark hair before those days are over, I will go back to Anyang and find Chanyeol. And it won’t be pretty then.”

Playing dirty was a demon trait, Baekhyun had been a master at it before, but now it was being used on him. Being a mortal, there wasn’t much he could threaten Sehun with, and quite frankly he was too surprised to think of tactics now.

“You wouldn’t,” he threw back, his mouth dropping open in disbelief, and Sehun’s grin grew as he realised he had Baekhyun right where he wanted him, “you’re not that mean. You can’t be. Sehun, I swear to god…”

“If you don’t know what’s best for you,” Sehun shrugged, “then I will have to help you a little now, won’t I? Take it from me, Baekhyun. You’ll grow to like the red, and hopefully you’ll see my point and travel to Anyang too.”

He no longer sounded like he enjoyed the game, only like he really wanted Baekhyun to trust him on this. Baekhyun wasn’t sure whether he should. The last time he did, he almost lost Chanyeol before he could even get him, even though in the end Sehun’s trick had been pretty helpful. He guessed that Sehun was good at giving advice, even though his advice was a bit extreme in most cases. Baekhyun would have to find a happy medium.

“Now will you let me cut it to finish the look, or are you going to storm out of here with red hair and the same long hair as you came in with?” Sehun asked, reminding Baekhyun of his red hair again rather than the whole Chanyeol issue. He still hated it, felt it was too bright for his liking, and like it was going to ruin his life, but he couldn’t do anything about it now.

Baekhyun groaned, wanting to fight Sehun for how he had taken control over him so easily, but he knew that his friend was the one holding onto a pair of scissors whereas he had nothing. He couldn’t do anything but accept defeat, even though he was surely going to come back in three days to get his hair dyed back to black.

And he certainly wasn’t going to travel to Anyang and visit Chanyeol, no matter how for a while Sehun had been making sense to him. The guy clearly didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, and Baekhyun had no desire to go and see his ex-lover being happy without him. They were over, over and out, forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, here we are then. After the interfering of Baekhyun's friends, what do you think his doubt will put him through in chapter 34?   
> Hope you all feel a little better about the Tae-ho situation. I promise it will be resolved soon. Everything...


	34. Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why was something still missing, holding him back from completely being himself? Was it love, or was it something else? Was it the fact that no matter how hard he tried to deny it, no matter how often he tried to cover it, there was still a gaping hole in his chest? A hole in the shape of a heart that desperately desired to be filled?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, are you ready? Bc I fucking am... I'm in the middle of writing the final chapter, before the epilogue, and it's already 13k and not even close to being finished. It will for sure be the longest chapter of the whole story. 
> 
> This one though, is the whole build up to that one. I'm really happy with what it turned out to be and I hope you will like it too! Enjoy 12.5k of change

~

 

"Tae-ho, can we talk?" Baekhyun asked, sounding a little breathless from the way the demon's mouth was attached to his neck, softly biting at his skin.

He hated how he had to do this right now, with how turned on he was getting from his lover’s explicit attention, but he hadn't exactly had any time to ask it before Tae-ho had pulled him closer to him. He had tried to forget about it too in order to get himself to relax and let it be for now, but he couldn't stop thinking about his conversation with Minseok and Sehun, and so he had to.

He had done a lot of thinking since Christmas day, when his friends had forced him to face his feelings without having any excuses to run from them. They had made him think about his life and his love for Chanyeol, about what was going on between him and Tae-ho and most of all: his future.

What did he envision his life would be like a year down the road? What did he want? Who did he want, if he wanted anyone at all? 

It had been difficult, but he knew he couldn't keep lying to himself, which was why he was trying to discuss it with Tae-ho now, before they'd continue down this road with different expectations. If he didn’t, things might end up getting really messy, just as Kyungsoo had warned him it would.

So tonight, he had wanted to walk into his apartment and instantly mention the need to talk, that had truly been his plan, but the demon had kissed him the second he had arrived back home and he hadn't let go since then at all. He did now, once Baekhyun had managed to let those hefty words slip into the space between them.

"Talk? Yes, good idea, I have something to ask you," Tae-ho smiled, wrapping his arms around Baekhyun's waist loosely, "but maybe _after_ , don't you think?" He winked before he leaned in again, ready to press their lips together, but Baekhyun stopped him before he could.

The hand that pressed firmly against Tae-ho's chest made the demon look down between them, his eyebrows furrowed together in surprise. Baekhyun usually never stopped him, not ever, and now that he had, the demon was probably worrying about what went wrong.

Except for how it wasn't just worry that he showed in his eyes as he snapped his head back up to look at Baekhyun, it was a strong, chilling anger too.

"Wait, what?" He scowled, his eyes flashing darkly as he snatched the fallen one's wrist to get his hand off of him, "are you seriously refusing me now?" The huff he let out made Baekhyun jump back slightly, feeling nervous suddenly from the way Tae-ho’s loving smile had disappeared and how low his voice had dropped. 

Baekhyun wasn't used to being scared, especially not around Tae-ho, but right now he was very much aware of the fact that he was human, a mortal with no powers to protect himself from the anger that could make a demon lash out. If he were to really anger his lover, he had no way to defend himself except for with his body and his words, and so he shrunk in on himself on instinct, displaying his weakness to Tae-ho.

Seeing him flinch made Tae-ho's eyes soften some, his grip loosened too, and for a second Baekhyun expected a smile to appear on his face as well. He expected for his lover to laugh it off, tell him he was only joking, but none of that happened. It was as if Baekhyun was seeing a totally different side to him.

At least Baekhyun’s cowering had made Tae-ho calm down enough to stop yelling at him. "Baek..." he whispered, voice more caring again, "come on, it’s only because I've missed you. You know I'm holding out for you, refusing every longing gaze I get, don't you understand that seeing you again makes me want to kiss you then?" 

A finger trailed past Baekhyun's jaw, up until he reached his hair and he brushed a red strand out of the fallen one’s face, "especially when you're looking this devilish, with that outfit and that hair. It suits you perfectly," Tae-ho's voice was sultry, trying to lure Baekhyun back in, and the fallen one released a shaky breath as he almost fell for it.

Guilt, it was guilt that he was feeling, guilt because he didn't want to do this before he knew where they both stood. He didn't want to have to worry about stringing Tae-ho along anymore, and that was why he couldn't. He managed not to fall for it, instead he pulled his hand from Tae-ho's hold and started shaking his head.

"I understand," he spoke quietly, soothingly rubbing his wrist as he looked down, "and we can, once we've talked things through." He turned away then, his back to the demon, and for a second he felt fear creep up on him again as he didn't receive an answer, only icy silence. He could only feel Tae-ho's eyes on the back of his neck as he walked to the windowsill. 

As he sat down, now facing his lover again, he ignored the way Tae-ho’s eyes were still dark, his jaw clenched as if he was holding back something, which seemed hard to do. It should have alarmed Baekhyun, but he was too nervous just forcing out his question, "you go first then. What is it you wanted to ask me?" 

Tae-ho sighed loudly and then finally relaxed some as he stalked over to where Baekhyun was seated. He flopped down on the couch across from him, making it they could still watch each other.

As he sat back, he spread his arms out, making himself look very important and regal as his eyes bore into Baekhyun's, "well maybe it's best to get it over with now, yes. Because this is linked to what I have just said, it fits beautifully." 

Baekhyun wasn't able to guess which part he was referring to, whether it had to do with Baekhyun's appearance or his time in hell, but he knew with Tae-ho he didn't have to wait long to get his answer.

"I've missed you, Baek," Tae-ho stated, his eyes soft although no real emotion was audible in his words, "and I no longer want to. I want to show you off, I want to show _us_ off. Together we could be the most envied couple in hell." 

The longer Baekhyun listened, the more his heart sank, until eventually it was left on the floor in front of him as he realised with a startle that Kyungsoo had been right. The prince of hell had warned Baekhyun about this, about the dangerous consequences of power and love, or what the demon thought to be love. He was glad he could recognise it now, because if he hadn't, things would have been immeasurably worse. 

They were not on the same page, the way he had hoped them to be, and knowing that Baekhyun immediately felt less confident about this conversation running smoothly. He kept quiet for a while, carefully picking his words before he spoke, but he couldn't avoid it forever.

Meeting Tae-ho's eyes almost shyly, hoping it would help soften the blow, he cleared his throat and all but stuttered, "but I don't." 

Before the demon's look of shock could turn into pure rage again, which was what was likely to happen with him refusing, Baekhyun started explaining himself, "you know I didn't choose heaven. I didn’t make that choice because I hate heaven, although I kind of do, but because I want to stay here, on earth. I don't want to go back to hell." 

He fidgeted with his hands in his lap while he looked away from Tae-ho's burning gaze, "but I'm glad you decided to bring this up, because I wanted to talk to you too, about us and-" but Tae-ho cut him off, not giving him a chance to describe his thoughts.

"This is about _him_ , isn't it?" Tae-ho threw at him, now looking closed-off and acting very much like any demon would. It made Baekhyun realise how power had truly changed Tae-ho. This was not the same Tae-ho he had met so long ago, back in hell. It wasn’t the same Tae-ho that had helped him clear his name either. The one in front of him was consumed by power and possession, and right now Baekhyun was disobeying him.

But as Baekhyun stared at him, afraid to look away, he noticed how Tae-ho hadn’t only changed in his feelings, but in his whole posture too. He sat there as if he was a king demanding respect, resembling Lucifer now in every way, especially with the way his eyes seemed to be spitting fire Baekhyun’s way. "This is about Chanyeol."

Without thinking of those words, Baekhyun started shaking his head, even though it was a lie. With the anger he saw already on display, he didn't want to risk more, which was why he tried to tone it down a notch. "No, it's-" he started, but again he was cut off. 

"It is," Tae-ho claimed, as if he knew Baekhyun better than that, "that motherfucking asshole left you broken to your very core and you still care for him."

His hand, which he had balled into a fist, came down on the coffee table, hard. The move had happened so fast that it had startled Baekhyun, it even got him to jump as high as his heart did, but it was nothing compared to the pure evil that laced Tae-ho's voice as he went on, ranting loudly. 

" _I_ was the one who put you back together, _me_ , and yet you still... You'd still run back to him, wouldn't you?!" As he looked up, Baekhyun saw a hint of sadness in the demon's nearly black irises, but it was overpowered by darkness and faded away quickly, "it's not fair, Baekhyun. You belong to me, not to him! When are you going to understand that?" 

Suddenly Baekhyun no longer felt pity towards Tae-ho for his lack of feelings. He no longer felt scared either, he only felt the same burning fury that he recognised in his lover. "I am _not_ an object, Tae-ho. You do not own me." His hands were balled into fists at his sides, they pressed into the wood of the windowsill, but he didn't even feel them, he only felt the fire in his chest.

"I don't, but _he_ does," Tae-ho spat out, "you kept on telling me he had your heart, isn't that the same thing!?" The demon was fuming by now, his knuckles white and his eyes bulging out of their sockets, "so you were only playing me? All this time, you thought it was funny to pretend to care? Because who cares, I’m only a demon without feelings, right?”

The sarcasm cut right through Baekhyun’s blinding anger, "no! I never played you, I swear," it slowly disspiated, changing into something more painful. Desperation, it got him begging to be understood," I tried, Tae-ho, I really did. I care about you, more than you think, and I enjoy being with you, but I tried to fall in love with you and I just couldn't. I couldn't back then and I can't now."

Tae-ho stayed silent as he took in these words, his whole face draining of emotion until he simply looked blank and unmoving, watching Baekhyun quietly. The fallen one saw it as his chance to explain himself better, "I thought maybe things would be different now that I am a mortal. I thought maybe the fact that you had helped me so much would make my heart warm up to you, unlike before, but I- you're right. It's not with me, I have no say in what it feels." 

The demon's gaze suddenly dropped, he looked away from Baekhyun as if those words had hurt, even if Baekhyun couldn't understand why. Tae-ho had a strange way of loving, one that didn't compare to the way Baekhyun had loved, and he didn't get hurt easily. At all. So why would he now?

"That fucking bastard, I swear I will-" Tae-ho started, the words twisted, shaped by the growling manner in which he said them, and Baekhyun huffed and broke in this time, "you'll what, Tae-ho? Life doesn't work the way you expect it to. People can't just force themselves to feel anything, they can't do as they please the way you think I can. You can't expect me to love you when my heart is with another, out of my reach still, after all this time."

He was growing frustrated and tired, his eyes filling with tears to match that emotion, but he pushed them back. "I- I can try again, though. I have a plan, a plan to get my heart back, and maybe that will change things, but I cannot promise you it will," Baekhyun apologised, "What I can promise you though, is that no matter what, whether I fall in love with you or not, I won't be coming back to hell with you. That's final." 

Tae-ho stood up so quickly that Baekhyun didn't even really see it happen. His eyes followed the demon as he paced, still on the other side of the coffee table, with his hands balled in front of him. He laughed, almost maniacally, and his words cut through Baekhyun like a knife.

"My god, you're good. Oh, you're real good," he grinned crazily, "such a selfish little bitch you are, so fit for a demon. You really think you're the most important person out there, don't you? You think I couldn't replace you with a snap of my fingers?"

It hurt, to be called selfish and arrogant, because he liked to think he wasn't. He liked to think he was pretty selfless still, a trait left from his life in heaven, but after Chanyeol and now Tae-ho, Baekhyun wasn't so sure anymore. Maybe he was indeed selfish, only thinking about what he wanted and how he felt.

Yet, despite the way Tae-ho was tearing at stitches his hands had placed, Baekhyun felt calm and clear-headed. Because hearing these words confirmed one thing, one thing that he had been extremely worried about at first.

"The fact that you're saying that proves to me that you don't love me at all," he confronted Tae-ho, "when you love someone, all you want is them. You wouldn't even want to think about anyone else. No matter what they’ll do to you, you’ll still want them, I know because-" he stopped then, realising he had said too much. He had let it slip without meaning to, without meaning the words, or did he?

The silence lasted only seconds before Tae-ho huffed as he threw his head back. More crazy laughter filled the air and then Tae-ho's maddened eyes looked his way, hitting the target Baekhyun had just set out for him, "so all you want is Chanyeol? Funny how you moan my name instead of his now."

It was meant to cut, and cut it did. 

Baekhyun refused to feel guilty about his time with Tae-ho, though, now matter how the demon was trying to guilt-trip him now. He hadn't been the one to end things with Chanyeol, he had every right to try and move on. "Just because I love him, doesn't mean he loves me," Baekhyun groaned, hating how he had to admit to that.

Slowly, Tae-ho's mouth started to quiver, his smile looking less and less like a smile, and he turned away from Baekhyun for a moment in which he clearly forced himself to get it back together, because once he turned back none of that vulnerability was left. 

With careful steps, the demon made his way around the coffee table, walking over to Baekhyun ever so slowly. His eyes were piercing right through Baekhyun's, making him feel naked and insecure, but he didn't back away in fear.

The reason he stepped away from the demon at the last possible moment, were his harsh words, said as he took the final steps. "How does it feel, Baekhyun? How does it feel to do to me exactly what he did to you?” he accused, “Does it feel good? Satisfying? Do you pity me now?" 

As his breathing stopped, Baekhyun shook his head, backed up all the way against the windowsill by now. His knees were close to giving in as those words kept on floating around in his mind, his conscience weighing on him heavily. Was he doing to Tae-ho what Chanyeol had done to him? Stringing him along without any feelings attached, making him think there was more to it than there really was?

He swallowed hard as he squeezed his eyes shut, feeling like a war was raging inside of himself, and he felt the despair swallow him whole. His whole body surrendered, making him drop back down in his seat in the windowsill. He stared ahead lifelessly, close to tears but so out of it, because this hadn't been what he had wanted to achieve. This wasn’t what he had hoped for.

His voice was soft, barely a murmur as incredibly shame completely paralyzed him, "I'll find Chanyeol and I'll take back my heart. Just, please, Tae-ho, you can't only blame me for this." Baekhyun was shaking by now, memories of his heartbreak resurfacing, "You _knew_ what I felt like when we first slept together again. You knew I wasn't in love with you and I never said I was, so you can't..." 

He had had a similar conversation with Chanyeol, and it was like life was mocking him once more by turning Tae-ho against him too. Or maybe he had done that himself, he really didn't know anymore. All he knew was that he couldn't breathe properly and that he had lost any feeling in his fingertips. As if his body was expecting the agonizing pain to come, it numbed him before he could feel it.

"You know what, Baekhyun? Let him have it, would you? I don't want it anymore," Tae-ho retorted, his voice icy cold. "We both know seeing him will make you miserable again, and honestly, I'm tired of fixing you when all I get in return in some half-hearted... whatever this was." 

The worst thing about hearing this all was that Baekhyun couldn't blame him. He wanted so badly to hate Tae-ho for everything he was saying, but the demon was completely in his right. He didn't have to voice it that harshly, but then again he was a demon, and that meant he wouldn't allow himself to go down without a fight. If he would allow himself to get hurt in the first place.

"Tae-ho," Baekhyun whispered, his hand reaching out for his lover's in a desperate attempt to plead for more time now that he knew he was running out, but Tae-ho stepped away from him. He was looking down at Baekhyun in something resembling repulsion, and Baekhyun let go immediately. 

"So this is it then?" he asked quietly, a soft huff leaving his lips because he couldn’t yet believe it, "just like that, you're done with me? Is it over?"

"No, not just like that," Tae-ho replied coldly. His posture had straightened again once he had successfully brought Baekhyun down, and his voice was back to that formal tone, like he had never talked to Baekhyun in his life before. It made his last blow that much more powerful as it snatched away whatever warmth had been in Baekhyun’s chest, "for something to be over it must have started in the first place."

Oh. 

Before Baekhyun even had a chance to respond, Tae-ho was walking away from him, the distance between them quickly growing, and Baekhyun felt like holding onto whatever straws he could reach. "Please, Tae-ho, I don't... I don't want to lose you too," he begged, at least being honest in that. 

"And I don't want to be just friends with you," Tae-ho replied, his back turned to Baekhyun as he put on his coat, "we can't both get what we want. I guess it's up to you to decide. I'll accept you staying on earth, for now, if only you give me your heart. If you won't... well, I can't keep coming here just for a friend. I have more important tasks to deal with." 

The idea of completely losing Tae-ho made him panic, but he couldn't speak even if he wanted to. He knew lying wouldn't change a thing, and telling the truth wouldn’t make this better either. There was nothing he could do but let his lover go, let him open the door to Baekhyun's apartment and slip outside without saying a goodbye. It just happened, he watched it all without saying a word, and once he was alone it stayed that way.

This time as his heart broke quietly he didn't cry or smash stuff within his reach, neither did he feel like the world was ending for him. It all proved to him how even though this whole situation upset him to no end, he didn't feel nearly as much for Tae-ho as he had done for Chanyeol.

Baekhyun’s heartbreak now was nothing compared to what it had been once Chanyeol had left, but that wasn’t what left him this distraught anyway. It was the knowledge that he had just done the same thing to his friend as Chanyeol had done to him, which made this so incredibly hard.

Because if this was anything like that, that had to mean that once Baekhyun had walked out on Chanyeol, his ex-boyfriend had felt as carefree as Baekhyun felt right now. Had he really? Had he shrugged his shoulder and moved on without a care in the world, feeling like he had lost something but nothing too important? It hurt to imagine, and so Baekhyun closed his eyes and curled in on himself.

Part of him wanted to call Minseok to come over and help clear his head, but he honestly didn't know what he'd say to him, and so he didn't. He just sat there by himself, feeling utterly alone with the empty feeling in his chest once again overruling anything else. 

He was alone, now more so than ever, but there was a simple relief in knowing that he was freed from every lie in his life. There were no more secrets, there was no more denial, and Baekhyun would get to start over fresh now. Or, well, almost. If only he’d get his heart back, then he’d really be able to.

There wa a certain liberation to knowing there was no way further down, there was only up. Baekhyun knew that it was the only reason why he wasn't falling apart completely this time around, and he held on to that thought whenever any guilt or sadness would try to overpower him completely.

He fought his emotions for so long that he ended up falling asleep in the same spot, but it didn’t matter, because every fight, he had won.

~

Supreme Seoul was having a party, a huge celebration on the rooftop of the Panorama Lounge and Bar. It was a night to go wild, a night to loosen up on the professional guidelines and allow for a more carefree mood to take over.

The party had been arranged for two special occasions, one of which being the fact that the company had a new manager, Baekhyun himself, and the other being that they were celebrating another anniversary of them being in Seoul. Apparently any excuse for a party was a good excuse, no matter how small, and Baekhyun realised quickly that Supreme did not take partying lightly either.

It was Baekhyun’s first real company gathering, different from the Friday night parties some colleagues organised every other week, and it was his first as a manager. Seeing as he was one of the reasons for celebration, he had to be among the best-dressed, which thankfully hadn’t been an issue considering the amount of zeroes there had been on his newly received pay-check.

Tonight he was dressed in black jeans with two slits at the knees, making it a tad more youthful, matched with a golden and black striped jacket which had been tied in at the waist and revealed his collarbones. Underneath it he wore platform shoes in black with a matching golden tone in it, and to top it off he had worn an old choker, something that was now an accessory instead of a necessity.

His fingers slowly stroked the velvet around his neck, making him feel a little like his old self, and he briefly thought back to the days where he had been homeless. His finger slipped between the choker and his skin, the lack of oxygen making him gasp breathlessly.

He hadn’t dared touch the choker Chanyeol had given him, the one with the lettering, and he had actually been happy it didn’t fit his outfit. He hadn’t worn it since the day Chanyeol had left, had always settled on picking out a different one, because looking at it always reminded him of the past, of that beautiful Christmas Eve.

Baekhyun had opened the evening with a thank you speech, and now he was allowed to walk around and chat with everyone else. He had gotten himself a cocktail, feeling sad he hadn’t been able to make it himself, and then he had slowly started making his way around talking to his co-workers. It was slightly different now he was their manager, but most still talked to him the way they had done those months before.

“Baekhyun-ah!” Yixing, their supervisor, waved at him from where he stood a few tables away. Baekhyun let go of the velvet string around his neck and swallowed away the lump in his throat as he averted his eyes to look at his best friend within the company. His smile was bright, creating dimples in his cheeks and making his eyes wrinkle, and Baekhyun chuckled at the sight before he walked over.

“Yixing, it’s good to see you,” he touched the guy’s shoulder and watched as Yixing pushed a girl forward to greet him. It seemed she was a foreigner, her skin a pale white and her whole appearance more western. She was clearly not accustomed to the whole fancy lifestyle that belonged with working in the fashion industry, or maybe she just wasn’t accustomed to Korean culture.

Whatever it was, Baekhyun understood her very well. He had only been working in this branch for a short time as well, it took some getting used to. It was probably similar to suddenly stepping into an entirely different culture.

“Baekhyun, I’d like you to meet my girlfriend, Park Yisoo, or well, that’s her Korean name,” Yixing introduced her with a chuckle, after which Yisoo bowed politely. She looked a tad nervous, her eyes averted as she greeted Baekhyun and Baekhyun returned her gesture. “She arranged the ice cream truck for tonight, you should go check it out,” Yixing added.

His hand moved to the small of his girlfriend’s back as she stepped back, and he oozed this pride as he stood next to the girl, who Baekhyun only now noticed was just as tall as him. His slightly glossy cheeks made it look as if he had already had too many drinks and was slightly tipsy, but it was nice to see him happy.

Baekhyun wouldn’t be surprised if his friend was in fact close to his limits already, though. He knew Yixing couldn’t really hold his alcohol well, especially not after long days and little sleep, both of which they had had the past week. He decided it was best he’d let them be, but not after he sent a meaningful look at Yixing’s date, hoping she’d understand what he was trying to say.

“Thanks, I will,” Baekhyun promised as he raised his glass and drank before he walked off again, ready to greet the next table. Although it was a tad boring walking around most of the night, he actually liked this type of work. It made him feel special.

Back at the bar he had had fun, but he hadn’t felt any excitement or challenge most days. He had simply done his tasks and had smiled while doing them, but now…

Baekhyun got to lead a group of people, got to make important decisions and voice his opinion. He had to deal with problems and find creative solutions. In a way it reminded him of what his brother was doing up in heaven, although Baekbom had no freedom to make his own decisions and Baekhyun did. He was important within the company now, his opinion was valued, and he had never before felt that at home with a group of people.

It was different from having friends. His co-workers weren’t his friends, not the way Minseok and Kyungsoo were, but they all had the same objectives, which got them to work together well. It was special, only his this time, and it made him proud of what he had achieved. He had worked hard and earned respect, no one could tell him he didn’t deserve it.

Baekhyun finished his round thinking about it all, about his decision to take on a new challenge and how it could have gone horribly wrong. It hadn’t, and with every smile that greeted him he was reminded a little more of his worth in this world that he hadn’t been able to succeed in until he had made living a mortal life his fate.

“Good evening, Sir,” a voice pulled him from his thoughts, and as he cleared his head and looked in the direction it was coming from, he realised he had ended up at the ice cream truck that Yixing had been talking about. Inside it stood a young woman, her hair up in a ponytail as she smiled down at him brightly, “would you like some Baskin Robbins ice cream?”

Baekhyun blinked at the girl in surprise, the question not really reaching his ears, and because it took some time for him to answer, the girl kept going, assuming he was waiting for her to tell him more. “I have plenty of flavours. The classics, like vanilla, but also some specialties,” she was pointing at all the trays in front of her, “I have Caramal Chocolate Crunch, Chocolate Fudge, Very Berry Strawberry, or maybe you’d like Nutty Coconut or Cotton Candy Wonderland, those are very-“

“Cotton Candy Wonderland,” Baekhyun blurted out loudly, not even giving the poor girl time to finish her story. He didn’t have to hear more, though, he knew what he wanted, and so he didn’t apologise for being rude as the girl nodded and went to fetch him a small tub of the ice cream.

Baekhyun took it after he had set his half-empty cocktail glass on one of the bar tables, no longer having the desire to drink anyway, and he smiled and thanked her a little more politely this time. She returned his smile, albeit a little awkwardly, and turned to the next customer in line. Baekhyun hadn’t even seen other workers come over.

Staring at the ice cream in his hands and feeling how cold it was, as his fingers were already freezing, he was catapulted back into time. He didn’t even have to close his eyes to remember the plastic bag hanging from his doorknob, holding a big tub of Cotton Candy Wonderland and a smaller one of his own personal favourite, Very Berry Strawberry.

It felt like such a long time ago, that memory of the ice cream, but in reality it wasn’t even that long ago. What was a year, both on a human life and an immortal one? It was nothing, but to Baekhyun the past year had felt like the longest in his lifetime.

Taking the ice cream with him, Baekhyun walked off to a more secluded spot, a part of the rooftop terrace where the music wasn’t as loud and where no one would bother him. There were a few smokers at a table nearby, but those were the only people around as Baekhyun leaned against the railing in front of him.

He pushed the tiny plastic spoon into the ice cream and felt it was soft enough to eat straight away, and as he filled his mouth with the sweetness and a crackling sound of sugar bursting on his tongue filled his ears, he could hear Chanyeol’s voice in his head.

_“_ _'I hope you are smiling. I want to see you but I know that wouldn't be smart. So, while I'm at home eating a tub of your favourite ice cream, you can eat mine.”_

Baekhyun wasn’t smiling now, not at all. He felt more confused and unsure of his heart than ever before. The idea that he would get to rebuild himself now that every mistake he had made was cleared was a strange one, one he should feel ecstatic about but didn’t.

With nothing keeping him down, not his debts to Minseok and neither his feelings for either Chanyeol or Tae-ho keeping him tied to one person, he had the world at his feet. So then why wasn’t he happy?

Why was something still missing, holding him back from completely being himself? Was it love, or was it something else? Was it the fact that no matter how hard he tried to deny it, no matter how often he tried to cover it, there was still a gaping hole in his chest? A hole in the shape of a heart that desperately desired to be filled?

He was tired. Baekhyun was extremely tired of the fact that even now, his life still revolved around his first love. He could try to deny it but that wouldn’t lead him anywhere. It was all still about Chanyeol, that stupid fucking giant asshole who had both been the source of Baekhyun’s biggest pain and most blissful happiness at the same time.

They always said your first love is special, that it is a love that you will never forget, but no one had said it would be a love you can’t move on from. So why did Baekhyun still feel like, despite all his efforts, he wasn’t any closer to moving on from this than he had been on the day Chanyeol had left?

The words were still rinning in his ears, “ _I want to see you, but I know that wouldn’t be smart_.” Chanyeol had written for Baekhyun back then, when he had been unsure about his feeling for the fallen one because of everything that had happened with Jaehyun. Something he had clearly failed at identifying.

Right now, it was Baekhyun’s turn to doubt.

“I want to see you, but I know that wouldn’t be smart,” Baekhyun declared to the night sky, his breath leaving small clouds in the cold air, and he laughed at himself only a moment later. What a stupid thing to say, such a stupid thing to wish for. It was entirely Sehun’s fault too, for making Baekhyun think of the possibility in the first place, and now he had to deal with its haunting him.

Chanyeol didn’t want to see Baekhyun, no matter whether Baekhyun really wanted to see him or not, and that was the truth and the one thing that was significant. Because Baekhyun had once thought maybe his ex-boyfriend had lied about his feelings in that letter, the one he had sent after the break-up, but it didn’t matter whether he had or not.

If he had cared enough, if he had only had the tiniest flicker of hope for them to fix their relationship, he wouldn’t have left. It was stupid for Baekhyun to want to see someone who had made the decision he no longer wanted the fallen one in his life, but by now he had given up on changing his feelings. His heart was with Chanyeol, his heart knew what love was like, it only made sense he wanted to get that back.

The coldness of the ice felt nice against his burning lips and so he allowed himself to stand with his mouth open, listening to the sugar crackling on his tongue like he was a child, until he felt pitiful and swallowed the half-melted mixture that had pooled in the back of his mouth.

After he had stuck another spoonful of icecream between his lips, he leaned on the railing and stared up at the sky again. He couldn’t see the stars here, the blanket of smog hanging over Seoul preventing that, which saddened him and at the same time reminded him of how some things were for the better.

Some things weren’t meant to be. Like him and Chanyeol, apparently. And Baekhyun wishing upon a falling star.

If there had been stars out there, Baekhyun would have tried to make a wish, hoping to get it granted. But as if fate had decided against it, there weren’t any visible tonight, and even if there had been, the chances of them falling would have been slim. Yet, despite all of that, Baekhyun still exhaled deeply and cast his eyes up, voicing his wish to the sky.

“I wish I could find out the truth. The whole truth, regardless of how ugly it is,” he admitted to the darkness, “I wish I could see Chanyeol one more time, so he can tell me honestly, and so that I can take my heart back home with me once he has.”

Baehyun brushed a strand of hair behind his ear before he looked down, adding more to his wish, words that almost hurt to say out loud, “I wish that once it’s over, and I mean _really_ over, he’ll be able to find his happiness and I’ll be able to find mine, we both deserve that.”

He knew there was a way to make it happen, yet he didn’t dare think about that. He couldn’t, he had been trying so hard not to let those thoughts in since Sehun had mentioned it, only two short days ago. Since that day he had followed Minseok’s advice about confessing to Tae-ho, partly having been fuelled by the ideas the hairdresser had given him, and look where it had got him.

No, he should stay far away from Anyang, even though he had wished upon invisible stars to meet with Chanyeol again. But wanting something and knowing what’s best for you are two different things, and although Baekhyun wanted to believe seeing Chanyeol wouldn’t be a mistake, he wasn’t too sure it wouldn’t be.

~

 

This was crazy. It was foolish without doubt. It was a whole new level of insane that Baekhyun had reached here. He should not be there, he should have known better than to listen to someone who knew nothing at all about his situation and he should not have let his fight with Tae-ho make his stubbornness win. Yet somehow, even though he knew all of that, he hadn’t been able to stop himself.

Three days had gone by and Baekhyun had still been a red-head with a choice to make. Then, six days had gone by and he had still not been able to shake Sehun’s cookie theory, no matter how stupid it had been.

It had taken two weeks before he had cracked and lost the battle, giving in to what his mind had been begging him to ever since Tae-ho had walked out on him. Life had been such a mess since then, with Baekhyun turning into a workaholic, spending every waking moment trying to get better at his job. It had worked well, had distracted him enough that he wouldn’t have to think about Tae-ho’s words and the ultimatum he had left him with, but in the end Baekhyun couldn’t keep fighting.

Two weeks had long passed when Baekhyun finally caved and dropped by Chanyeol’s old workplace, only one question on his mind. Where was he?

“We aren’t allowed to tell you which school he transferred to, but considering your past relationship to Mister Park, I can tell you he indeed went back to the Anyang region,” the principal, a woman he had conversed with during lunch that day he had visited Chanyeol’s classroom, had told him then.

She had pitied him, obviously, because she had been there the day Baekhyun had collapsed in the classroom too. She knew Chanyeol had left him behind and it was clearly her pity which had made her tell him that much, especially because she had said she wasn’t allowed to tell him.

Nevertheless, he was thankful to her. Knowing Chanyeol had gone back ‘home’ was all he had needed to know to move on to his next step. Again he tried to stop himself, knowing this could very well end up being the most idiotic plan he had ever come up with, but fighting was futile. The small spark of hope that Sehun had lit in him had turned into a full-on blaze, unable to ignore any longer.

With the confirmation Baekhyun got from Chanyeol’s old school, combined with the information he had on Lee Jaehyun and his family, he managed to narrow down the amount of kindergarten schools in the area to the three most likely ones that Chanyeol could be working at.

Those kindergartens were his only shot, he knew that much when he planned this all. Finding Chanyeol at his new workplace would be the only way to meet up with him now, because there was no way he was jus going to run into Chanyeol on the streets again. Fate wouldn’t be that kind.

Besides, fate wasn’t on his side, anyway. And because he had no clue as to where Chanyeol had lived before he had moved to Seoul, the only option left was work. It was a possibility that they had lived on different sides of the city, meaning Baekhyun was looking in the wrong direction with his kindergarten schools too, but he would have to start somewhere.

He was hoping for some luck, or, more like begging for it. Yet it was complete madness, travelling to Anyang only to see his ex-boyfriend and possibly get his heart broken all over again. Baekhyun had just picked up his stuff and left, without a plan as to what he’d do or say if he actually were to find Chanyeol there.

It was ridiculous, and incredibly unwise too, but Baekhyun didn’t know what else to do to get the guy out of his system. He didn’t know how else he’d be able to let go of Chanyeol. He had to see him once more, he had to know if his ex-boyfriend had been honest about how he felt about him.

This doubt, this silent hope, it was killing Baekhyun, and only seeing Chanyeol living a happy life without him could make him accept it all.

Which was why he was sitting at his second school of the day, seated on a bench on the other side of the street, facing the schoolyard in front of him as he waited for lunch break to end and the teachers to come outside to retrieve their kids.

He had crossed his first school off the list early that morning, as he had seen plenty of teachers but no Chanyeol, and after that he had gone straight to this one. He had been there for hours, which was why he was thankful for the tree that stood behind the bench, providing him with shadow and keeping him slightly out of view, making him less obvious.

To make sure though that no one would recognise him, he was wearing a large scarf around his neck as well as a warm woollen hat on his head to cover up his bright red hair, all in the hopes that matched with his otherwise black outfit, he would stay off the radar.

Furthermore, he was wearing a mouth mask as well, a black one that hid most of his facial features, and to complete it all he had gone as far as wearing blue contact lenses to change the appearance of his eyes, all to prevent any old friends or family running into him.

It was a stupid plan and he felt more unsure of himself with every passing minute, wondering if maybe he should have talked this through with someone first before coming here. No one knew he was there, not Sehun, not his friends and especially not Tae-ho.

Baekhyun hadn’t actually talked to the demon since their fight and he knew he wouldn’t have to expect to talk to him again unless he had made up his mind about their relationship. Baekhyun wasn’t sure he could, and so talking to Tae-ho was off-limits.

Secondly, Minseok and Kyungoo thought he was on a short work-holiday in celebration of his promotion. Baekhyun had wanted to tell them, but he was too worried they would have tried to stop him for some reason.

Part of him knew his friends had always been supportive and understanding in how Baekhyun still loved the man he was hoping to find again, but they had also seen him broken and tattered as a result of that man’s words. Something had told Baekhyun that sharing his plan with them would have made leaving harder.

Even if they wouldn’t have stopped him, Minseok would have shared his thoughts about the situation without a doubt. Whether he should take Chanyeol back if he apologised, or not, or what to say if he was still the same asshole he had been when he had left. And no matter what his thoughts would have been, they would have influenced Baekhyun regardless of whether he agreed with them or not.

His friends’ opinions mattered too much to Baekhyun for him to hear them and not take them into regard. If he had told them where he was going, he wouldn’t have been able to make his own decisions, and the only reason he had come here was for himself. It was the whole point of the trip.  

He had grown so much over the past year, had gotten to know himself so much better, that he knew he had to do this now. It had taken a while, Baekhyun had been through plenty of ups and downs, but he could feel the roller coaster was coming to an end. He was slowly but surely arriving at a station, its destiny still unknown, but this was, without question, a turning point for him.

He had left Seoul for the sole reason that _he_ wanted to. He hadn’t been pressured by anyone or anything at all, which was why if things went wrong, he was the only one to blame. Of course, it was true that Sehun had been the one to plant the seed, the idea to go visit Anyang, but Baekhyun had been the one to make the decision to water it and watch it grow.  

It had taken him almost a year to pick himself back up enough to stand here and want to face Chanyeol. It had taken him so long to feel ready enough to face him without feeling like he would burst into tears. Sure, Baekhyun was nervous, more so than he had ever been, but he was ready. As ready as he would ever be.

As he sat there, watching kids playing tag and running around happily, he let his thoughts float freely. He was trying to think of what he’d say to Chanyeol once he’d see him, of a way to open the conversation and explain why he was there.

Because that had to be the first question Chanyeol would ask him. Why was he there when Chanyeol had told him not to come looking? What did he want?

Baekhyun wasn’t entirely too sure about those answers himself, but he guessed he’d have to keep it simple anyway. Those weren’t questions to discuss at his work place to begin with. And so all Baekhyun hoped for was for Chanyeol not to send him away and bring him with him instead, to a place where they could talk more freely.

He shook his head then, realising he was running ahead of himself, because before he’d get to talking to him, he’d have to find Chanyeol. Maybe Baekhyun wouldn’t even be lucky enough to find him, let alone talk to him.

It was an option he had tried his hardest not to think about, but to ignore its existence would be a step too far. Baekhyun knew very well there was a chance Chanyeol wasn’t at any of the kindergartens he had picked out, he knew he needed luck, and so rather than think of what he’d say, he started praying.

With his hands folded in his lap he looked up at the sky, directing his thoughts up towards the god he knew existed. He directed it to everyone he knew up there, to Minjae, to Baekbom and his family, all in the hopes that someone would listen to him and gift him with a little luck.

“Please, let me find him,” he whispered to the clear blue heavens, his chest aching with how badly he was longing for it. Because to have taken this step and go home empty-handed, it would be worse than going home disappointed and hurt. Baekhyun liked to think he’d survive another round of heartache now that he had survived his first, but to be left in the same doubt as before, he couldn’t.

Closing his eyes to properly send his wish off, he squeezed his hands together tightly. And then all he could do was wait and continue to hope, sitting there feeling choked up with emotions.

He knew it was a matter of minutes before the bell would signal the end of the break. He was only minutes away from possibly losing his second selected school. Then all there would be left was the third school, which he would then visit that afternoon in order to wait for the bell that would signal the end of the day.

He kept his head down, eyes on his hands as he started twisting his thumbs, hands still folded together. The sound of screaming and running kids was almost overpowered by the sound of his blood getting pumped through his veins, and Baekhyun briefly worried he wouldn’t hear the bell at all once it would ring, until it did.

The shrill sound cut straight through anything else, making Baekhyun’s head shoot up even though nothing new could be seen yet. Kids halted in the middle of their movements, realising that play-time was up, and although some continued running on without a care in the world, most quit whatever they were doing and turned around straight away.

Baekhyun watched them all run to what was apparently their part of the schoolyard, making neat lines as they waited patiently for whatever came next. He even spotted some boy putting two of his friends in place as they wouldn’t listen, and Baekhyun softly smiled at that, although on the inside he was dying. Thank god he was seated, his legs would have given up by now if he hadn’t been.

The first group started walking, Baekhyun could see it from the corner of his eyes. It was the group consisting of the youngest kids in the yard, and they quickly entered the building while they were led inside by a young woman with light brown hair. Baekhyun didn’t know her, but he assumed she was their teacher.

However, considering it wasn’t the person he was looking for, his eyes moved on, hoping to spot more teachers walking around to fetch their groups.

He saw a few of them talking in the middle of the yard, in between all the rows of kids. A group of three teachers had walked over together, until they had reached that point in the middle. They ended their conversation and waved at each other as they walked off in different directions, ready to go get their own respective groups.

After a quick scan, Baekhyun found out none of them were the man he was looking for, and he sighed anxiously as his hope started to wither. He felt it all slipping through his fingers again, with more and more groups already gone inside with their teachers. The day was only half over and he already felt defeated, thinking maybe he should just go home.

And that was when the sun caught the glass in the door of the school as it swung open. It blinded Baekhyun, making him narrow his eyes for a second, until the door fell shut again and out walked someone tall, someone handsome beyond belief.

Baekhyun’s breath caught in his throat as he laid eyes on Chanyeol, watching him walk to a group of young kids, younger than his class in Seoul had been, and he smiled that sweet smile that fit him so well.

Chanyeol was right there, within his reach, and smiling so softly at his students that Baekhyun honestly couldn’t breathe. In truth, it was surreal, like an out-of-body experience, to see the man who still had his heart, walking around like nothing was wrong with him at all. As if he didn’t know what damage he had done, whatsoever.

Because Chanyeol looked happy, with his smile looking genuine and the lack of dark circles under his eyes that indicated he had trouble sleeping, the way Baekhyun had. Chanyeol looked so much better than he did, so much more content than Baekhyun had hoped for, and as he thought of this the smile that had began forming at the corners of his mouth, quickly died down again.

In a way this wasn’t anything like he had expected this moment to be like. He had thought he would start running once he had seen Chanyeol, flinging himself into his ex-boyfriend’s arms, but it wasn’t anything like that. In another way that was kind of reassuring, too.

Baekhyun watched him without getting up and walking in his direction, instead sat frozen as he tried to absorb the sight as much as he could. From the lack of curls in Chanyeol’s hair to how ripped he suddenly looked, muscles clearly visible even in his loose dress shirt, he wanted to remember it all.

Chanyeol looked older, like much more than a year had passed since they had last seen each other, and Baekhyun felt composed enough to admit he looked even more beautiful than before, healthier too.

For a moment, Baekhyun was able to forget everything bad between them. As if none of it had happened in the first place, as if he had just gone over to see his boyfriend at work on his day off, wanting to be with him. Pride filled his chest, pushing aside every other bad feeling that had lived there for so long, and just like that Baekhyun felt at peace again.

It felt so… easy, somehow, like coming home, and although the thought initially calmed him down, it soon turned him concerned.

Because Chanyeol could easily push him aside again. He could send Baekhyun away _again,_ and getting too comfortable now would make him weak and would make the blow that much harder if it were to hit him. It was hard, but he had to remember what he had gone through the past year in order to stand tall and not let his emotions overrule him.

He watched as Chanyeol took the hand of the girl first in line, who then extended her other hand to the person behind her. Just like that, in a little train of people, they went inside, Baekhyun’s ex-boyfriend stopping at the door to hold it open for everyone to pass through first.

He was the last one to go in, his back turned to Baekhyun as he stepped inside, and even though barely a minute had passed since he had first come out, that minute had been enough to make Baekhyun feel more alive than he had done in a while.

His whole body filled with excitement, the relief of having found Chanyeol quickly being turned into an exhilarating energy that pumped through his body at full speed. He felt electric, like he had been struck by lightning and now his nerves were charged with anticipation, and once the whole schoolyard was empty, he pulled down his mask to allow himself to gasp for air.

After taking a few deeply-needed breaths, Baekhyun laughed to himself, the sound soft and dry as it filled the air, but his smile finally broke through. Luck had been on his side today. All those gloomy days he had lived through had been good for one thing: good karma.

He had found Chanyeol, had seen he was alive and breathing and happy, and no matter what would happen now, Baekhyun felt content knowing at least his first love wasn’t miserable. He didn’t know why that made him feel lighter, but it did.

The thought of finding a Chanyeol in the same state as him, even though that would have told him a lot about his ex-boyfriend’s feelings, hadn’t been a pleasant one to deal with. He would have felt more guilt somehow, about so many things, but luckily he had no reason to now.  

And so relief washed over him, making Baekhyun already feel victorious regardless of the fact that nothing much had even happened yet. Finding him, however, had been the first and probably most difficult step, and to know he had achieved that, it lifted part of the heavy weight on Baekhyun’s shoulders.

He sat with his elbows resting on his thighs, still laughing out loud from time to time, like some crazy person. The disbelief was still there as well, as it was so hard to let go of, because Baekhyun had been so certain that this whole journey would turn out to be a failure. Yet it hadn’t, at least not yet.

This was the second school Baekhyun had found out about, only the second one in the area that he had looked into, and he had found Chanyeol here. Out of all the possible schools he could have been working at, somehow Baekhyun had found him on his second try.

It was only the first day of his three-day trip, hours since he had arrived in Anyang after a half-an-hour train ride, and to Baekhyun this felt like extremely good fortune. That morning he had still been in Seoul, taking a train at six o’clock to get to the first school in time, but now he sat there knowing where his first love was. He was right there, inside the building in front of him.

A godsend, that’s what it was. His prayers having been heard, a blessing fallen upon him, it had to be.

Baekhyun stared at his phone to check the time, noticing how it hadn’t even been half an hour since he had seen Chanyeol in the schoolyard, and he sighed as he realised how much longer it would be. Probably another hour or two before the final bell would ring.  

Knowing he had to wait that much longer before school would finally be over, leaving Chanyeol would be alone and available to talk to, it left Baekhyun feeling restless. The exhilaration that he had felt before, switched right back into nervousness, but this time more so than before.

His leg was bouncing up and down tensely, his eyes trained only on that one door he had seen Chanyeol go into. The thoughts of having to start a conversation with the one who had broken his heart, it made him feel almost physically ill, and he was sure that if someone were to address him now he'd puke all over the place when opening his mouth to answer. Which was exactly why he was glad he was alone again. 

The schoolyard was deserted, the street quiet except for the occasional local walking by, carrying bags from the supermarket around the corner. Baekhyun, though, tried to focus on other things than the world around him, like on the way the cold air was biting at his skin through the fabric of his jeans and how his eyelashes appeared to have turned into tiny icicles. 

He had completely forgotten how cold it was, so preoccupied with other things that he had missed how his nose was running. He hadn't noticed it much because of how the constant anxiety had been so overpowering that nothing else had been able to break through that. It left him shivering now, as he suddenly noticed how long he had actually sat still.

Yet he didn't want to get up and go for a walk, being extremely reluctant to leave his spot on the bench, because what if, for some reason, Chanyeol were to get off early today and he would leave during the time Baekhyun was gone? He couldn't leave and miss that opportunity, he had to stay right where he was, or else luck might leave his side.

And so he sat, despite the biting cold, all but begging for time to pass a little quicker when it seemed as if the opposite was happening. It dragged on, almost as if the hand was going backwards instead of forwards, but Baekhyun would hold on no matter what.

He pressed his hands between his legs and rocked himself back and forth, hoping the movement would stop him from shivering so violently. His nose he tucked into the scarf around his neck, mouth mask and all, and he closed his eyes for a moment as he tried to suck up whatever warmth it would give him.

It wasn't much, but it was something, and with his eyes closed he almost felt like he was floating for a little but, time not even existing. Until someone clearing their throat right next to him made his eyes fly open in shock, "excuse me."

In front of him stood the young woman he had seen taking a group of kids into the school, earlier. She had been the first teacher he had spotted. She stood in front of him and was smiling politely, although it looked awkwardly strained, and Baekhyun tried to smile back as well as he could while he looked up at her.

"We couldn't help but notice you've been sitting out here for so long, and..." She looked back at the school, as if she could see someone there that helped spur her on to say more, "we were wondering if you- would you like to come inside? Clearly you're waiting for someone, best not to get ill while doing so, right?" 

The silence between them was uncomfortable as the woman waited for Baekhyun to make up his mind and answer, but the fallen one was trying to think things through.

He didn't really know what to say to her. Was it smart to accept this? Considering how he looked like Jaehyun, a guy who had lived here all his life and had friends and relatives in the area? A guy who had disappeared without a word and could never, not ever, return here?

But then again, refusing her offer would be impolite and it would make him look weirdly suspicious, so what else could he do but agree? If he were to say ‘no’, she’d wonder why he would rather sit outside in the cold, and that would trigger more questions than going inside would probably do.

And so, quietly, without having replied to her yet, Baekhyun picked up his bag and swung it over his shoulder. Then he bowed in greeting, answering with a humble sounding, "thank you, that's very kind of you." 

The woman didn’t say anything, she simply turned around and led him across the schoolyard, towards the entrance of the school, and with every step Baekhyun took he felt more impatient. His heartbeat had sped up so much he could feel his pulse in his throat and his hands were clammy, all because of the thought that with every step he took, he was getting closer to Chanyeol.

With every classroom they passed, Baekhyun let his eyes roam, desperately searching to find him again, sitting around with his kids the way Baekhyun expected him to. Needless to say, he felt incredibly disappointed when they turned a corner and he was brought into an office in a hallway away from the classrooms.

Inside the office stood one large desk, behind which sat a man who was clearly well within his forties, if not older. The man looked like he was important, maybe the principal, and Baekhyun blinked in confusion as the woman directed him to one of the chairs in the sitting area before she closed the door behind them.

She stayed there, as if guarding the door, and Baekhyun frowned, not quite understanding why she’d do such a thing. But then the man stopped typing on his computer and stood up, quickly fixing the fit of his suit jacket as he did, and he turned his dark and serious eyes on Baekhyun.

“Okay, tell us what’s going on,” the man said without any introduction to who he was, his tone quite rude. He didn’t seem nearly as friendly as the woman who had escorted him here, but when he looked at her for support now, he saw how she looked at him without any emotion, her mouth a straight line.

Baekhyun blinked, his hands coming up to take off his mouth mask, and he voiced the question on his mind with his confusion lacing the words. “I’m sorry, sir, but could you explain what you are referring to?”

The man took a few steps towards Baekhyun but he never sat down, as if he didn’t want to lower himself to the fallen one’s level, and for a second Baekhyun felt panic as he thought of the possibility that these were demons, or maybe angels, knowing who he was and luring him into a trap.

However, when the man opened his mouth again, Baekhyun realised that wasn’t the case. “You’re not fooling us, young man, we’ve seen you sitting across the street. You’ve been there for hours, just watching our school, so what is it that you want?”

Baekhyun quickly realised this was all a misunderstanding, a bad one, but a mix-up still. Yet before he could defend himself and explain the situation, the man started accusing him of all sorts of wrongdoings.

“Do you have a child here at school that you’re not allowed to see? Is that why you’re dressed like that? Or maybe it’s not your own child, maybe you were looking for victims instead? No one would sit there for so long if they only came to pick up their child or were looking for someone, so what is it? What’s going on? We will call the police if we feel like we have to.”

The man was all but fuming by then, clearly wanting to protect his school and the kids in it, and Baekhyun understood his worries, in a way. He realised that the man’s words wouldn’t have sounded so stupid to him if Baekhyun hadn’t known his own reasons, it was why he could only applaud them for taking such action. However, as none of those things applied to him, he held up his hands in surrender, showing them how they had misunderstood him.

“It’s nothing like that, sir,” He apologised, “I’m sorry for making you worry like that, but it’s nothing that serious. I was indeed looking for someone, but not a child, and I didn’t want to rush in at the end of the lunch break, which was when I found him.”

“I was going to wait for classes to be over before going to see him,” Baekhyun went on, explaining in more detail, “that’s all.” He smiled, hoping it would look more reassuring rather than creepy, and although most of the man’s troubles seemed to fade away the more he spoke, he wasn’t completely certain about Baekhyun being honest yet.

He eyed Baekhyun up and down, staring at his dark clothes and strange appearance, and then he asked, “who were you looking for then?” It still sounded slightly hesitant and hostile, but Baekhyun knew that if he kept being honest they would understand him eventually.

“Park Chanyeol, sir,” Baekhyun told him, hands folded in his lap as he spoke, “he- I know him from when he lived in Seoul, and I wanted to find him, but he never told me which school he transferred to, which was why I was outside waiting to see if I could spot him. I knew lunch break wasn’t the best time to walk in here and ask, so I watched. I didn’t mean to make you worry or doubt me. I’m sorry if I’ve caused any inconveniences.”

The man looked over at the woman at the door, as if he wanted to see her response to his story, and when she nodded – which Baekhyun could see from the corner of his eyes – the man sighed. He unbuttoned his jacket and sat down, staring at Baekhyun in interest now, which was a hundred times better to look at than his anger.

“Go tell Park he has a visitor, would you? Get Yoona to take over for him in the meantime,” the man ordered to the lady before he waved her off. She left the room in a rush, immediately following her orders, all while Baekhyun felt like his heart stopped beating.

Tell Chanyeol he has a visitor? Have him come over here to greet him? Oh god, that would be a disaster. It would be a total catastrophe. Meeting each other here, with other people present, no way that would go well.

The man would find out how unwanted he was, how Chanyeol hadn’t expected to see him at all, and Baekhyun felt how he shrunk in on himself a little. God, the embarrassment he was about to experience, it would be horrible.

As the fallen one tried to brace himself for it all, he heard the man clear his throat, “I’m sorry if I came across as rude, I was only looking out for my students and my staff, I hope you understand that. Either way, I never quite introduced myself… My name is Kim Yongmin, I’m the principal here.”

Baekhyun bowed his head as he took the outstretched hand in front of him, accepting the man’s apology easily, “that’s alright, sir. I understand completely, and I apologize too.” Then he introduced himself, “my name is Byun Baekhyun, I live in Seoul and work in the fashion industry.”

“I see,” Kim Yongmin answered, nodding his head along to Baekhyun’s words, and his smile was more genuine this time.  He sat facing Baekhyun, looking interested and ready to ask him more, maybe about why he was there and why he couldn’t just have called Chanyeol, which would be a very good question to ask now, but he never got that far.

The door opened again to show the woman that had left them alone barely three minutes ago, and she quickly glanced between the two of them to see if things were alright, before opening the door further. She stepped into the room but stayed near the wall, holding the door and allowing for another figure to enter.

Chanyeol.

Baekhyun saw his long legs first, clad in neat black slacks, and the further they trailed up, the harder it became to breathe. He hadn’t properly done so since the woman had left to go get Baekhyun’s first love, but now that he was there, in the same room as him, it became even harder. It was as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room, and no matter how much air he got into his lungs, it was never enough.

He stood up then, the rush going to his head as he did so too quickly, but he blinked the dizziness away without moving any more. He was too busy letting his eyes roam up, taking in Chanyeol’s limp arms next to his sides and the steady rise and fall of his chest that was visible through his shirt, all the way to his face.

His beauty hadn’t faded at all over the past year. In fact, Baekhyun felt like Chanyeol had truly become more beautiful, and seeing him up close only confirmed that.

There was clear shock in his big almond-shaped eyes, his perfect lips slightly parted, and Baekhyun took in every little detail of his ex-lover’s face that he had longed to see again. The strong jawline, the curve of his nose and those cute ears, Baekhyun had missed it so much that it hit him at full force.

Like a blow to the chest, that’s what it felt like to meet those dark chocolate eyes and see the surprise in them.

It was nice not to see any hatred or disgust in those pools of brown, something Baekhyun had been worried about, and he knew then and there that coming here was not a mistake. Chanyeol could even tell him he had no feelings left for him, he could send Baekhyun away all the same, but it wouldn’t make this a mistake. Because the fallen one couldn’t detect the harsh undertone Chanyeol’s letter had had, not in his posture nor in his eyes, and just knowing his ex-lover didn’t hate him would be enough.

Baekhyun was truly ready to fall to his knees in front of him, to beg him for anything his heart desired. For his love again, or for his heart back, but they weren’t alone here. Besides, he wasn’t exactly sure he could move now, not with how every nerve was frozen inside of him as he stood face to face with the man he had unknowingly been longing to see again from the day he had left.

He had thought he had gotten over the worst of it, that he had been fine without Chanyeol, but boy, being here sure showed him how wrong he had been. Within an instant the desire to wrap his arms around Chanyeol’s waist and kiss him had tenfolded, making Baekhyun’s fingers tremble at his sides and his throat go painfully dry.

“Chanyeol,” he squeaked, his voice barely a whisper, “it’s me.” It was such a stupid thing to say to someone who should know exactly who he was, someone who shouldn’t need a reminder, and maybe Chanyeol didn’t need it, but Baekhyun still said it. It had to be the nerves.

Chanyeol blinked a few times, as if he had to process this way actually happening, and then his mouth closed and his tongue darted out to wet his lips. Baekhyun watched every detail of it, feeling his heart drop as his ex-boyfriend looked down at his feet instead of at him. But hearing his voice again, no matter how soft, made it jump right back up.

He was no longer looking at Baekhyun, but he was clearly not mad or upset to see the fallen one there, which was a much as a victory as Baekhyun could have hoped for at this time.

His eyes only flitted back up once, for barely a second, as he finally spoke, his eyes meeting Baekhyun’s as he said the fallen one’s name, “hi, Baekhyun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAHHHH *does a happy dance* finally my babies are back to seeing each other. I've been waiting for this moment as long as you have. And now it's here!!! 
> 
> If you've enjoyed this as much as I did writing it then leave a comment or a kudo, in case you haven't already ^^ thanks <3


	35. Final Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I need the truth, and if that means you’ll break me again then break me, but I can’t live with this doubt.” He was shaking his head, his eyes closing for a moment, “You ran away when things got tough. For whatever reason, you no longer wanted me in your life, but I’ve always thought that maybe- maybe you were just hurt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Make sure you have plenty of time to read, cause this is a big one! The final chapter to their story, where Chanyeol gets to explain and Baekhyun will have to make up his mind on what he wants. What is the truth he so longed to hear??? 
> 
> Please read the notes at the end of the chapter too!
> 
> Without further ado... here is the final chapter <3

 

Walking next to Chanyeol, or more like slightly behind him, was a hundred levels of awkward. And it had been awkward since the moment they had greeted each other, at times so uncomfortable that Baekhyun had wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole. Take him back to hell for all he cared, if only to be anywhere but there.

Because after their initial greetings in the principal’s office, neither of them had said anything for a while, until mister Kim had cleared his throat and had guided Chanyeol to the seat next to Baekhyun, forcing them both to sit down.

It had become clear to the man then that they hadn’t seen each other in quite some time, and that maybe they needed a moment alone. But being alone with Chanyeol had actually been worse than having the principal there with them.

Baekhyun had made such a fool of himself, stuttering out a jumble of words that had made no sense at all, all while Chanyeol had done nothing but stare at him. No words spoken, no touches made, just him sitting there with his eyes trained on Baekhyun as the fallen one completely ruined his composure, or whatever had been left of it.

Then, when it had sunk in that neither of them would have been able to say much to the other at that time, so soon after their surprise reunion, Chanyeol had pushed himself up out of the chair with a certain disappointment.

The move alone had been enough to induce a minor heart attack, which soon enough twisted into a panic attack that left Baekhyun to think that Chanyeol was walking out on him again, but his ex-boyfriend had only sighed as he had run a hand through his hair, “wait here.”

He had turned away, taken the few steps to the door, and then turned back to look at Baekhyun once more, “I have to go finish up for today. You can come with me once I’m done, so wait for me here.” He hadn’t needed to wait for Baekhyun to agree, the fallen one had been the one to seek him out, not the other way around, and so he had opened the door and walked out.

Baekhyun had sat there for the remaining hour of the day, while the principal had settled behind his computer again. The man had occasionally glanced at Baekhyun to see how he was doing, but he never once asked him what was going on, and Baekhyun was beyond relieved he hadn’t.

Minutes after the final bell, the door had opened again, and in walked Chanyeol. His coat had hung on his shoulders, still unzipped, along with an untied scarf. He had looked like he had rushed there with the way he had only been half-dressed, and yet he didn’t even address Baekhyun when he came in.

“Yoona has offered to clean up my classroom so I could leave a little early today. Is that okay with you, sir?” Chanyeol had asked, his hands on the ends of his scarf as if he was waiting for permission to tie it around his neck properly. He had stared at the principal, who had eyed him and Baekhyun as if he had been trying to figure out what was going on between them, but then he had nodded.

Without waiting for anything else, Chanyeol had turned to face him and nudged his head towards the door. “Come on, then,” he had told Baekhyun as he had wrapped himself up in warmth, preparing himself to go, and Baekhyun had stood up to follow.

After a polite goodbye to the principal, Baekhyun had followed his ex-boyfriend outside, back into the cold. And that’s where things had gone quiet again.

Since they had left the school, Chanyeol hadn’t said a thing to him. He had only guided Baekhyun through street after street, leading quite a bit away from the school and into a different neighbourhood.

Baekhyun had no idea where they were going, but he didn’t dare ask, too afraid of the tone of voice Chanyeol would use now that they were alone, without anyone present to keep things civilized between them. It was enough of a miracle that his ex-boyfriend hadn’t sent him away the moment they had left the school, that he was allowing him to go somewhere with him, and so Baekhyun wasn’t going to test his luck and ask for more.

They turned a corner after passing the fourth 7-eleven since the school, and walked into what appeared to be a maze of smaller streets with more expensive houses. Rather than seeing tall apartment complexes, like there had been in Seoul, these streets had a mix of small apartments and larger terraced houses, all looking more beautiful than the last.

Did Chanyeol live here? How was he even able to afford such a place? Or- or maybe it wasn’t his house they were going to at all.

For a moment Baekhyun felt panicked, worrying maybe he was being brought somewhere else instead, to another family, one that he had no desire to see. One that wasn’t really his, yet one that would think he was theirs. Would Chanyeol fuck him over like that? Would he really lead Baekhyun to the Lee family? He couldn’t imagine it.

However, Baekhyun was concerned and uncertain enough to want to reach out and tug on Chanyeol’s coat in order to demand his attention, so he could ask where he was being taken. But just as he was about to do so, the taller trailed off to the left and came to a stop in front of one of the terraced houses.

Following his example, Baekhyun stopped too, a step or two behind Chanyeol, and he took in the small yet comfortable looking home that lay behind the fence. It had two stories, the brick wall mostly dark, but with a burst of rosy pink on the outside walls.

The stone arch surrounding the fence was covered in ivy and a plant that blossomed with soft orange flowers. Pots filled with more plants lined the outer wall, making everything even greener, and Baekhyun wondered how Chanyeol could possibly be able to afford something this beautiful.

Inside the driveway he could see a car, a black Kia, and a rusty bike which stood parked against the house, but that was about all that was visible for him at that point. In front of him, Chanyeol was fidgeting with a key, his back turned to Baekhyun, and the fallen one turned his eye on him instead of the house. They were about to enter it anyway.

Judging by the key, this was not the Lee family he had been brought to, but the house where Chanyeol lived. He looked very at ease at this place too, his shoulders relaxed and his posture radiating tranquility, something Baekhyun wasn’t feeling at all.

He had been on edge for hours now, it was sure to make him snap sometime soon, but there was’t exactly a way he could stop it. He’d probably stay jumpy and nervous a while longer, especially with the task at hand: talking to Chanyeol. Maybe he wasn’t ready after all.

When Chanyeol opened the fence and walked through it, he turned to Baekhyun and smiled softly, as if to tell him it was okay to come in. He had yet to see any anger or disappointment on the taller’s face, and so Baekhyun met the smile with one of his own and stepped across the border.

They stood very close like that, close enough to touch, but Baekhyun wouldn’t dare let his trembling hands do as they pleased. He’d be standing back out in the streets quicker than he could apologise if he were to do so, that much he knew, and so he kept his hands at his sides.

“Come on in, then,” Chanyeol started, reaching the stairs first as he had walked away from Baekhyun while the latter had gotten lost in thought.

Scurrying over, Baekhyun tried to keep up with Chanyeol’s pace, his backpack bouncing up and down as he jumped up the flight of stairs to catch up again.

He was sure that had they still been together, Chanyeol would have laughed at him now. However, as it was, he didn’t even turn to look at Baekhyun as the fallen one groaned tiredly while hopping up the stairs, not really used to working out. It was a little disappointing, but Baekhyun knew he was expecting too much too soon.

Behind the front door lay warmth, blissful heat that Baekhyun had been longing for ever since they had left the school. The house felt lived in, with shoes all strewn around and multiple coats on the rack.

Baekhyun copied Chanyeol’s moves once he tore his eyes away, toeing off his shoes first before he went for his scarf, unravelling it from around his neck. His ex-boyfriend was much quicker, he didn’t need time to take in the whole hallway first, and he walked off while Baekhyun was still fumbling with the coathanger.

Once done, he stumbled in after Chanyeol, his backpack in hand, and he saw they had reached the kitchen area first. The room smelled of food, which wasn’t strange considering how there was a pot on the stove, something boiling inside the water. A pan stood next to it, a lid covering the contents, but some steam came out from underneath and showed how it was definitely filled with food.

Baekhyun realised how hungry he was, his stomach grumbling quietly at the smell that hung in the air, but that hunger quickly dissolved within seconds as he heard a foreign voice cut through the silence.

“You’re home early today,” the voice said, and Baekhyun’s gaze travelled to the woman at the kitchen counter. Chanyeol had walked up to her and was now standing next to her as he got his lunchbox out of his bag, which he put on the countertop. “Didn’t expect to see you before I had to leave myself.”

The woman was absolutely beautiful, Baekhyun could tell just by looking at her profile. Her face was small, her bone structure one to be jealous of, and her eyes were big, like Chanyeol’s. Her hair was dark and of a shoulder length, cut perfectly straight, and her body was lean and dreamily curved.

She looked like she belonged in a girl’s idol group, or on the cover of some magazine perhaps. Yet she wasn’t, she was here, in Chanyeol’s kitchen. Or maybe their kitchen, in their home. Which raised the question: who the hell was she?

Baekhyun stood there with a lump stuck in his throat, his feet glued to the floor as he suddenly realised that maybe this was Chanyeol’s girlfriend. Could she be? Could they be living together after having dated for nothing but a few months? Had Chanyeol really moved on from him that quickly?

A million questions sprouted while Chanyeol threw his bag on a chair and walked over to the fridge, all while casually talking to the woman, like Baekhyun wasn’t there at all.

She had yet to grow aware of the fact that they weren’t alone, and so he was thankful when Chanyeol explained to her what had happened at work, “I got a visitor, so they let me go early.”

The woman turned at the mention of that, facing Baekhyun as she finally noticed how they weren’t alone like she had probably assumed, and the fallen had to take a step back in order to accept her gaze. He hastily put his bag on the ground before he looked back, bowing politely in greeting before he glanced back up at her.

She was even more beautiful than he had first thought, which did nothing but make his heart drop that much further down. Her presence claimed the room, leaving Baekhyun unable to look anywhere but at her, even though he tried. She captivated him with her smile, making it impossible to hate her, too, and her excitement to see they had a guest was tangible in the air.

“Hi!” her voice was soft and welcoming as she walked up to Baekhyun, holding out a hand for him already, “I’m Nora, it’s nice to meet a friend of Chanyeol’s.” She bowed her head in return, her hair falling down to cover her face slightly, which made Baekhyun snap out of it finally.

He returned her greeting, their hands shaking as he introduced himself too, “the pleasure is mine. I’m Byun Baekhyun, I come from Seoul.”

He didn’t clarify his relationship to Chanyeol any further, didn’t explain he was an ex-lover, but when Nora straightened herself again something akin to recognition flashed in her eyes regardless of the lack of information he had provided her with.

She threw a look over her shoulder to where Chanyeol stood at the counter, filling a kettle with water, his back towards them. He didn’t meet Nora’s eyes, as if he was pointedly avoiding her, but Nora didn’t let it get to her. She smiled at Baekhyun as she turned back to him, her eyes showing him sympathy now, “ah, I see. Well, I wish I could stay and chat, but I have to head out and get to work. I hope I’ll see you around again, though, Baekhyun hyung.”

They could hear Chanyeol scoff as Nora reached over to grab her handbag, which had stood on the kitchen table. She winked at Baekhyun, something he didn’t understand the point of, and then told Chanyeol, “I’ll text you later, idiot. Food is almost done, don’t you dare ruin it by forgetting to turn off the stove again. Oh and save some for me, of course.”

She was obviously referring to the pots and pans that were still cooking on the stove, but Chanyeol didn’t respond to her at all, which Baekhyun fould entirely too strange. If she was his girlfriend, didn’t he need to send her off lovingly?

Nora, though, didn’t seem to care. She only chuckled and shrugged her shoulders, sending another smile Baekhyun’s way before she spun around and walked out on them.

Baekhyun stared at the empty space where she had stood for another minute or so before he walked over to the stove, where Chanyeol was still fumbling around aimlessly. His ex-boyfriend was frowning, staring at whatever he could see in the pot of hot water in front of him, and then he sighed loudly as if he was giving up already.

Just by looking at him, Baekhyun could tell Chanyeol didn’t know what to do with this, and although maybe he shouldn’t, the fallen one wanted to help. And so he stepped closer, hand reaching out to warn the taller he was coming closer, and when Chanyeol didn’t push him away, Baekhyun moved even nearer as he waited for the ladle to be handed to him.

Chanyeol eyed him warily from the corner of his eyes, clearly unsure of this himself as well. He even took a tiny step away as he noticed how close they were, but then he handed over the ladle without saying anything.

Their hands touched briefly, something Baekhyun absolutely tried not to dwell on but failed miserably at. Still, he tried to focus on the cooking, which had been the whole point of him getting this close to his ex-boyfriend in the first place.

He stirred the contents of the pot, noticing it was boiled pork belly Nora had been making, and he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he poked the meat with the ladle. “Ah, it should only be another few minutes before it’s done. Wait for the water in the kettle to boil and then turn this one off, it should be good then,” he instructed as he handed back the ladle.

Once Chanyeol had hesistantly taken it back from him, Baekhyun stepped away again, knowing it would make the other feel more comfortable if there was some distance between them. And silence, clearly silence was workable between them, too. However, that wasn’t what Baekhyun had come for, and Chanyeol knew it.

While the guy went back to stirring the food in the pan, clearly using it as an excuse to not have to talk, Baekhyun thought of things to say that would help get a conversation going. There were so many things too choose from, so incredibly many topics they should cover tonight, but there was only one that kept nagging at Baekhyun’s brain.

It was rather difficult, to mention the elephant in the room, but Baekhyun had to, and so he simply tried his hardest not too sound too tense and obvious in his jealousy when he said, “so… she’s really pretty.”

Chanyeol all but stopped stirring the food, his whole body freezing momentarily as the words Baekhyun had uttered entered his brain. He blinked fervently, his lips pursed together in a pout, and then the corners of his mouth twitched in a smile, “she is, isn’t she?”

Baekhyun fidgeted with his shirt, staring at his feet as the answer he received didn’t tell him much more, like he had hoped for. Which meant he had to be a bit bolder, had to suggest a little more, even if that proved harder than he had thought. “Yeah, she could be a model without a doubt. She’s stunning, as much as you are handsome.”

He couldn’t do it, he couldn’t call Chanyeol out on having a girlfriend, not without sounding pathetic and bitter, and so he didn’t. He was here for a different reason than winning Chanyeol over, and so there was no competition. It should not feel like competition.

Chanyeol moved about a bit and when he turned to Baekhyun again he was holding some plates. He presented them to Baekhyun only for a second before he all but dropped them in his arms. The fallen one barely had any time to properly get a grip before they’d have fallen to the ground.

“Uhu,” Chanyeol agreed, “she does some modelling yes. Now go set the table, would you?”

Standing there like a statue with a pile of plates in his arms, Baekhyun felt like getting a little angry. Mad, because of the way Chanyeol was acting so childishly, refusing to give him the answers he wanted and speaking to him without any emotion. It wasn’t fair how he could just do that.

However, instead of throwing a tantrum, like a damn baby would have done, Baekhyun chose to be the better person that he knew he was now, and twirled around so he could walk to the table. He wasn’t going to give Chanyeol the satisfaction of having managed to get him pissed off this quickly. If anything at all, he would start playing this game the same way as him.

Without saying another thing, Baekhyun started setting the table for two. He placed their plates across from each other, meaning Chanyeol would be forced to face him while they’d eat, something that he hadn’t done properly at all, so far. Short glances were not the same.

When he was finished he sat down on one side, arms crossed as he leaned back into the chair and waited for Chanyeol to either bring the food or demand more of his help. Neither of those things happened, though, as the only thing that was put in front of Baekhyun was a mug filled with warm, steaming tea.

He stared at it for a moment and then looked up, seeing how Chanyeol was still avoiding his gaze. “I heard you waited outside for quite some time,” the taller explained, his facial expression a difficult one, “they worried you’d get sick, so drink up. I put in some honey just to be on the safe side.”

Chanyeol turned away casually, not waiting for a reply as he went back to the stove, but Baekhyun didn’t need to see or hear anything else.

He choked up, staring at the steaming mug in front of him, his eyes close to watering as exhaustion washed over him. All of a sudden the tension in his body broke, leaving him tired and emotional, and all of that because of a cup of tea.

Or, well, it was more than that. Because this wasn’t just tea, Baekhyun could tell it wasn’t just warm water flavoured with tea leaves. This was the physical embodiment of Chanyeol caring, still caring even after the way he had broken Baekhyun’s heart, and it was stupid to think about, but it gave him so much hope.

Brewing the tea, along with saying those words, had been something his ex-boyfriend hadn’t been forced to do. No one had ordered him to get tea for Baekhyun, neither was Baekhyun showing any signs of actually getting sick, yet Chanyeol had been thoughtful enough to get some for him. He knew how much the fallen one loved his tea, he still remembered.

“Thank you,” Baekhyun squeaked out, much too late to be fitting, and although it could be heard just how touched he was, he didn’t feel as awkward about it now. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, sharing how he felt, even though the outcome of this all was still unpredictable.

Another silence fell as Chanyeol worked at the stove, the pan still boiling on one of the pits, but the pot had been taken off as Baekhyun had suggested he’d do. The sound of a knife against the cutting board was the only sound that could be heard in the entire kitchen, but Baekhyun didn’t care. He focused on breathing, on allowing himself to feel a little more at ease, and it worked.

Although he had no right feeling at home, he still did. He could imagine himself waiting for Chanyeol to come back from work, preparing dinner for them while he did. Or for Chanyeol to stand in the kitchen, cooking up something easy as he himself had been late and Baekhyun in turn was even later.

Now, though, it had been Nora who had cooked, Nora who did that for him, and so it was improper to think such things.

Baekhyun wrapped his hands around the warm mug in front of him and tapped his fingernails against the ceramic, creating a tune in an attempt to stop any images of Chanyeol and Nora together from penetrating his brain. He couldn’t allow himself to let in these mixed signals, the caring side Chanyeol showed was probably nothing but pity anyway.

“There we go,” Chanyeol groaned as he set down the large pan of food on the table, glad he could let go of the hot handles, and he threw the pot holders aside before he went to fetch his own drink as well as the plate of sliced-up pork belly.

Baekhyun dared himself to stare at Chanyeol as he sat down, the man’s eyes trained on the food rather than on Baekhyun, and he did so until the taller felt uncomfortable and looked up to meet his gaze. Chanyeol had been holding a serving spoon in hand, ready to fill it with food and transfer it to their plates, but he paused mid-move.

Complete silence fell as they watched each other in absolute serenity, Chanyeol’s gaze finally roaming across Baekhyun’s face and taking him in as if he was seeing him for the first time. It was as if Baekhyun had bared himself completely, he felt that naked under his ex-lover’s watchful eye, but he didn’t shy away from it. He met it proudly, tilting his chin a little higher to not feel as small.

Chanyeol’s eyes dropped then, down to Baekhyun’s neck, where they stayed, a little unsurprisingly. His hand let go of the spoon, which slid down into the pan straight away, and he dropped it to the table, where it lay lifelessly. Finally, his eyes widened slightly as he brought out an almost disbelieving, “you got a tattoo.”

It wasn’t a question, only a statement, and Baekhyun really couldn’t tell from it whether Chanyeol liked it or not. His hand flew up immediately, covering the ink on his neck, but he quickly let go again too. He wasn’t ashamed of his choice to get a tattoo, no matter what Chanyeol thought of it, and so he hummed, his voice steady and strong as he explained, “yes. This way I don’t have to wear those chokers anymore.”

When Chanyeol looked at him with his lips slightly parted, Baekhyun felt complied to say more, though. “But it’s not just because of that,” he was quick to admit, “I thought about it for a long time, and although the spot I picked has to do with the scar, the reason I got a tattoo was because I felt like my story with Jaehyun needed a proper ending. It’s a tribute to him as well as my own life.”

Mentioning Jaehyun still caused Chanyeol to wince, and Baekhyun noticed the way his hand had balled into a fist on the table, probably without meaning to. Before he could comment on it, however, Chanyeol had sat back in his seat and shrugged his shoulders, like he didn’t care at all, “whatever.”

And that, the careless way he said it, when it was evidently a lie, that pissed Baekhyun off. He wanted nothing more than to call Chanyeol out on his bullshit, to tell him he could _see_ he was lying, but he didn’t. He had to remember the thin ice underneath his feet, how one wrong move or word would make it crack and he’d slip under in that freezing water.

Instead, he sighed to himself quietly, his right hand coming up to take a hold of the beanie he was still wearing. It was probably best to get the surprises out of the way now that they were talking about it anyway, and that included the colour he was hiding underneath his hat. If he would wait, it would distract them later on, and so with one tug Baekhyun revealed his bright red hair, throwing the hat aside haphazardly.

Chanyeol was staring again, eyes wider than before, and Baekhyun couldn’t help but laugh a little dryly, “yeah, I know. Sehun tricked me into getting a surprise make-over, that’s how this happened.” He brushed a hand through the tangled mess on top and smiled, “I grew to like it, though, and it gives me an edge with work. People remember me better now, calling me ‘that red-headed manager’.”

An eyebrow quirked in reply to that, making Chanyeol tip his head to the side, “manager? Did Minseok give up the bar or something?” he asked, clearly curious about what Baekhyun was talking about. That was a good thing, the fact that he wanted to know more about Baekhyun’s life as it was now, a year since they had last seen each other.

“No,” Baekhyun shook his head, “I no longer work for Minseok. I stopped working at the bar over half a year ago and started as a salesman at Supreme, which is a fashion brand. It was pure luck that I happened to get hired not too long before our manager left, and I tried my luck a little more by applying for his job. In the end they thought I was most suitable, and so I got promoted around Christmas.”

Chanyeol was staring at him intently as he talked, as if there was much more to his story than there actually was, and Baekhyun almost felt a little uncomfortable. He toed the soft carpet beneath his feet, staring down at his still-empty plate as he felt those eyes burning a hole into him now.

“What?” he muttered eventually, feeling nervous from the way Chanyeol wasn’t speaking, only watching him. As if Baekhyun was missing out on something, something he should have understood already, yet he didn’t. Not even when Chanyeol tried to explain.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he whispered, watching Baekhyun intriguingly. There were so many emotions visible in his face at once that Baekhyun couldn’t look at him too long without feeling anxious about all he didn’t understand yet.

“What?” he huffed, “me working in fashion? I mean, you know I always used to care about my looks. I followed the latest trends as well as I could with my low income, you shouldn’t really be surprised that I-“

But Chanyeol waved his words away, his hand right up in Baekhyun’s face, “no, not that.” He retreated his arm and placed his elbows on the table, his chin resting on his entwined fingers, “I don’t just mean your job, I mean you being here at all. I was- I was so certain…”

When Chanyeol didn’t finish his sentence, Baekhyun leaned closer, moving himself into his first love’s line of sight, until their eyes met again. “What?” he asked then, demanding for him to be clearer, “what were you so certain of?” and as he asked that and saw a remorseful look on Chanyeol’s face, things kind of clicked. “Oh.”

“I thought you’d be in heaven by now, which was mostly why I was so shocked to see you today,” Chanyeol started explaining, almost as if he was apologising in some way, “it wasn’t because of how you look or because I didn’t expect you here, although- well, in a way it was… but it was mostly because I thought I’d truly never see you again.”

And although there was a kindness in Chanyeol’s words, as if his surprise should be understandable, Baekhyun couldn’t help but feel bitter as his mind showed him the hastily written letter that had been left at his apartment all those months ago.

“That’s what you asked for, though, wasn’t it? To never see me again? That’s what you wanted,” Baekhyun reminded him sternly, his tone a stark contrast to that of Chanyeol.

At the mention of that letter, of the contents that Chanyeol himself had written, the taller dropped his hands on the table, his jaw clenched and gaze cold. Baekhyun had plucked the wrong string, creating a broken note, and it was clear that his ex-boyfriend did not like it.

He had been reminded of the way he had left, and it seemed that memory wasn’t particularly pleasant for him either. Still, whether that was true or not, Baekhyun wasn’t going to let him off easy.

“I was only following orders, you see. I know I shouldn’t be here,” Baekhyun went on, his tone slightly mocking, and Chanyeol jaw clenched tighter, his nostrils flaring as he breathed in. It made him look bigger and more threatening than he really was, because Baekhyun was sure that with one wrong move on his side, one wrong comment, he could make Chanyeol crumble.

“Exactly,” Chanyeol all but growled through his gritted teeth, glaring at Baekhyun with such intensity that the fallen one shut up immediately, “you shouldn’t be here. You should be up in heaven, living in the happiness that I couldn’t give you, I told you that when I left. So why didn’t you go, Baekhyun? Why are you here instead?”

There was a passion between them as the conversation got more heated, all while the food turned cold between them on the table. Neither of them seemed to care much, they only cared about the fire in their chests and the anger in their souls, and most of all about showing that to the other.

Baekhyun exploded, going off like fireworks, because how dare Chanyeol criticize him for his choice to stay on earth? How dare _he._  

“Because I need to know the fucking truth, Chanyeol!” He burst, bellowing the words as he pointed at his ex-boyfriend, “you need to tell me the goddamn truth, because it’s long overdue. And don’t you dare make this about my choice, because you didn’t make it for me.”

He pointed his finger at himself then, “it was me. I chose my own happiness, and to get that I need to be on earth. I need to be here, and I- I need my heart back.” The power in his voice slowly faded, becoming weaker as his words became more vulnerable.

And just like that, the fiery red had left his body, leaving him drained of energy once again. He felt small, his voice was soft and barely there, but he spoke the words he needed to say regardless of whether Chanyeol would make fun of him for it or not. He couldn’t back out now.  

“I need the truth, and if that means you’ll break me again then break me, but I can’t live with this doubt.” He was shaking his head, his eyes closing for a moment, “You ran away when things got tough. For whatever reason, you no longer wanted me in your life, but I’ve always thought that maybe- maybe you were just hurt.”

Baekhyun was treading on dangerous ground with his statements now, he knew that. These were all things Chanyeol could deny without any difficulty, and he could do so harshly, but by baring his soul Baekhyun hoped the taller would see how much he needed this; some proper closure.

“I thought- that maybe you ran away because it became too much to bear, not because you didn’t feel anything for me. I’ve always wondered if you were really that heartless as you made yourself seem in that letter, or if it was all play pretend. So please,” he pled, “I’m begging you Chanyeol, just be honest with me today.”

Baekhyun’s outburst didn’t lead to a counterattack. It didn’t make Chanyeol retort with anything spiteful and no snarky comments were made. In fact, it looked more like Baekhyun’s first love was overcome with a sadness rather than resentment.

There was nothing malicious about the way his whole body sagged in the chair, as if he could no longer hold himself together, and he closed his eyes to Baekhyun’s questioning gaze as if he didn’t want him to see whatever could be read in his eyes.

Complete and utter silence filled the room and nothing could be heard for a full two minutes, which was when finally Chanyeol seemed to start breathing again. He rubbed his face, held onto his cheeks for another few seconds, and then he answered Baekhyun’s request with nothing but a soft, unspoken agreement in his eyes when he opened them to him.

Baekhyun let go of the breath he had been holding and slumped back in his seat again, tipping his head back to look at the ceiling in a moment of relief. He had been so scared that his rant had been the end for him. That either Chanyeol would have completely burned him to the ground or would have thrown him out, but neither of those things happened.

Instead, Chanyeol finally got around to filling their plates with food, something Baekhyun was thankful for, because although they had agreed to being honest with each other, they both needed some time to pull themselves back together first.

Baekhyun already felt unhinged enough as it was, he needed some food in his system before he could take anything more, especially if the truth were to hurt.

Chanyeol handed him a pair of chopsticks, which Baekhyun quietly took from him, and then they both got around to eating, stuffing their mouths with noodles. They snatched away slices of pork from time to time, the only sounds between them moans of contentness and the slurping of their food.

It would have been peaceful, had there not been the feeling of anticipation in the air, crackling and electrifying the air around them. As it was, though, both of them knew this would be like the last supper.

It was like a final meal between them, quite literally, because it would either really be their last one together, or this meal would mark the start of a new beginning. Baekhyun honestly didn’t know which was more likely by now, he didn’t know which one he hoped for, it was much too soon for that.

Because if Chanyeol was dating, if he had built up this whole new life, did it matter how he felt about Baekhyun? Did it matter whether he had lied or not? Would it be worth leaving behind what a year apart had given them?

There were too many questions that needed an answer, but Baekhyun was sure they’d get there step by step. It would start making sense soon now, with a year’s worth of doubt finally getting resolved. The thought of that alone was freeing.

Eventually, the silence became deafening, and Baekhyun’s whole body was begging for something to happen, which was how his mouth was spitting out words before he could stop them from leaving his mouth. With his eyes on the food, he murmured a quiet compliment, void of any emotion – thankfully -, “she can cook well, your girlfriend.”

The response he got wasn’t anything like he had expected it to be. Because instead of Chanyeol returning his words some witty comment, he ended up choking, on a mouth full of noodles, like the statement had come as a surprise to him.

He bit off the remaining length of the noodle and swallowed what he still had in his mouth, although with great difficulty, as he tried not to cough it all out. His eyes were watering, his nose leaking, and just as Baekhyun wanted to point that out, Chanyeol seemed to become aware of it himself, for he picked up his napkin and pressed it to his nose and mouth. He coughed a few times too, a fist hitting his chest, and when he had finally calmed down enough to stop coughing, he raised his glass and drank some.

Blinking away the left-over tears, Chanyeol cleared his throat loudly, “I’m sorry, you startled me.” He paused as he swallowed again, just in time to stop another coughing fit from happening, “I was trying to eat and answer at the same time, somehow that went wrong.”

Chanyeol wiped a thumb across his cheeks, getting rid of the trails of wetness that led all the way to his chin, but he didn’t say more. He didn’t confirm Baekhyun’s implication, nor did he contradict him in any way, but the fallen one would wait until he did. He had mentioned it with a reason, Chanyeol must understand that, and he wouldn’t continue without having an answer.

As Baekhyun went back to eating, not having said anything about the choking incident because he was still waiting, his ex-boyfriend watched him in perplexicty. Slowly but surely, though, he came to realise Baekhyun’s tactic of not speaking until he would, but rather than give in to it, Chanyeol refused to answer.

Baekhyun could tell from the corner of his eyes that the taller had sat back in his chair, a large doofy grin on his face, and it soon turned into laughter that made it impossible for Baekhyun to keep his eyes on his plate of food.

Chanyeol’s laughter continued to grow louder and louder, his thoughts apparently very funny, and Baekhyun watched him slap his knee and lean over sideways with his whole face wrinkled up in amusement. He had always loved watching Chanyeol lose it over something so small and insignificant, but not knowing what the reason was made him nervous.

“Ah, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol was shaking his head now, his grin bright and his eyes sparkling, “you haven’t changed one bit, have you? Still that stubborn and fierce, I see.” He was eyeing Baekhyun completely, from the way his chopsticks hovered above his plate, to how his comment had sparked that defensiveness in Baekhyun’s posture.

“You’re so stubborn that you don’t even see the truth even though it’s right in front of you, staring you in the face,” Chanyeol’s tone wasn’t accusing, yet Baekhyun sure felt it that way. The fucker was telling him he was dumb, basically, and rather than just tell him the truth then, Chanyeol thought it was funny to just play this game?

Baekhyun was about to snap again, feeling stupid for ever having liked Chanyeol in the first place, but he realised that by doing so he would be proving the taller’s words to be true. Besides, the asshole wasn’t done talking yet, “did you really not see the resemblance? The eyes, the ears, the smile?”

“People often think we’re siblings,” Chanyeol went on, while things slowly started to fall into place, “but we’re not. Nora is my uncle’s daughter. She’s alone as well, mostly because of her busy work schedule, and so when I returned here, she offered me a place to stay so I didn’t have to stay with my family. We kind of liked how that worked out, though, and so short-term turned into long-term.”

Baekhyun did feel stupid now. Of course he should have realised this sooner. Nora had been beautiful, stunning like Chanyeol was too, and he had noticed her big eyes, but had never made the link to her being related. He guessed thinking in worst-case scenarios had become his thing, and so his brain had instantly labelled her as a lover rather than someone else.

“Oh,” he mumbled, obviously embarrassed now, “I’m sorry.” He felt heat rise up his neck all the way to his cheeks, and he was thankful for how the tattoo at least hid some of that redness. It had been a while since he had last felt this flustered, because it wasn’t that common anymore that Baekhyun would make a fool of himself, but apparently some things never changed.

The one good thing about this was that at least Chanyeol was being honest. Whereas at first he had refrained from clearing up who Nora was straight away, now he was sharing almost comfortably. He was following Baekhyun’s request to tell the truth, which was exactly the confirmation Baekhyun needed to keep on asking, “does that mean you are not seeing anyone right now?”

Chanyeol’s wide grin shrunk slightly at the question, and the light mood became a little heavier as Baekhyun started asking questions of more importance. Even so, Chanyeol didn’t shy away from answering him, like Baekhyun had kind of expected him to.

In his mind he had always received a stern ‘does it matter? It’s not like it will change anything’, in every imagination of this conversation he had had. And he had faced many imagined confrontations in that year apart.

In reality, Chanyeol shook his head, only stating, “I’m not seeing anyone, no.” He folded his arms in front of him, making it look as if he was trying to get more comfortable, but Baekhyun only saw the need to protect himself as his ex-boyfriend returned the question, “what about you? Are you, seeing anyone?”

And this was where things became uncomfortable for Baekhyun. Because, like Chanyeol, he would have to be honest about everything. He could not lie, because if he did, Chanyeol would notice and he would stop sharing instantly. Also, Baekhyun didn’t really want to share the truth. It wasn’t easy to put into words either without making it look like a bigger thing than it had been.

“Not… anymore?” he settled on, managing to make it sound questioning. He frowned as he noticed, looking for better words to explain it, “I mean, I guess you could say Tae-ho and I were a thing for some time. He stayed over a lot when I was- when I was hurt, and I seeked physical affection with him.”

It hurt to say, to admit that it had happened, especially because it had been Tae-ho, and Chanyeol knew him too. “He helped me get to heaven to tell my story and clear my name, and that kind of changed how I saw him. We had something comfortable, but then things ended, not too long ago. And unless I make the decision to go back to hell for him, that’s how things will stay.”

Chanyeol was really good at shielding his emotions, something he had either always been able to hide from Baekhyun or had learnt how to over the past year, because before he used to be an open book. Now, his eyes didn’t tell Baekhyun anything, and his voice was level and void of emotion as he asked, “why did it end, then?”

Knowing he couldn’t get into that without sharing how he still felt about him, Baekhyun looked away from Chanyeol to give himself some time to think. It was a difficult situation he was in, because on the one hand he couldn’t wait too long before answering or else it would sound like he was lying, but on the other hand he had to think of a way to stop himself from becoming too vulnerable all at once.

“He- we had a talk, and it turned out we didn’t feel the same way. He thought it was love, I didn’t. He accused me of still having feelings for you and told me to fuck off until I had made up my mind. I think he still expects me to come around, to come running and give up my life on earth to be with him, but I won’t,” Baekhyun voiced carefully, piece by piece, and he felt it was a good middle ground he had found there.

Without saying he indeed still had feelings for Chanyeol, he had made sure the taller knew he had been part of the reason for the break-up, and that was good enough.

However, he had not thought of how with the promise of bringing honesty made between them, Chanyeol would be a lot more daring in his questions, and so the, “do you, then? Do you still have feelings for me?” caught him off guard.

He clasped his hands together in his lap, eyebrows furrowing together as he had been asked so directly that panic broke out in his chest. He couldn’t lie, he would ruin everything if he did, but he didn’t want to share this yet. He didn’t want Chanyeol to have that much power that he knew how even after everything he had done to him, Baekhyun couldn’t stop loving him still.

And so he was honest, but in a different way than Chanyeol had probably expected him to, “can I wait with giving you my answer to that?” He saw the amazement in his ex-boyfriend’s face as he asked it. “Isn’t that a little unfair to ask? I’m not asking you the same yet, either. I would rather first talk about other things that matter before I share my feelings with you.”

Chanyeol’s lips were slightly parted, his face unreadable, and he appeared frozen for a few seconds before he moved again. His lips pursed together then, his head going up and down in a nod as he agreed to Baekhyun’s words. “Okay, I understand,” he added to it, making it verbal and showing how he really agreed.

There was a lull in the conversation, a tense quiet in the air, and Chanyeol got up to clear the table as a way to keep himself occupied. It gave Baekhyun some time to consider what topic to move on to next, out of all the ones he felt they had to discuss.

He felt like he had to pick the most important ones, because he wouldn’t have forever, but then again turning extremely serious out of nowhere didn’t feel like the way to go, and so he decided to settle for some small talk while Chanyeol cleaned, to get him a little more up to date on life in Seoul.

“Anyway, Kyungsoo and Minseok got married, in a way. They’re wearing rings now, had this small romantic ceremony where they exchanged vows, and they’re moving to a house a bit closer to the bar, one in a neighbourhood that is a little more fancy,” he said as he stared at his own hands, which he had folded on the table.

“I myself moved too. I don’t live in my crappy two room place anymore,” he went on, laughing at the memory of that crappy apartment and how many happy memories he had made there. How many sad ones as well. “My new place is pretty similar to the one you used to live in. It’s about as big, but it has another guest room.”

Chanyeol piled up their plates and scooped food into special boxes that could be placed into the fridge. He looked at home there, as if he had done this countless times, and although Baekhyun could easily imagine domestic life with Chanyeol, it still felt like their paths were only crossing again rather than aligning.

Could he even hope for that much? For them to pick the same exit at these crossroads? For them to walk down the same road together after this? The odds weren’t in Baekhyun’s favour, they had never really been, but knowing the luck he had already had today it was so unlikely that Baekhyun didn’t even bother thinking about it being possible.

“That sounds nice,” Chanyeol replied as he walked back to the table with a bottle of Soju and two small glasses in his other hand, “they’re still happy together then, huh?” he smiled as he sat down, sliding one glass Baekhyun’s way.

“My life hasn’t changed much, I mean, you’ve seen pretty much all the change now. A different school and different house, that’s it,” the taller shrugged, focused on filling their glasses rather than looking at Baekhyun, “I thought maybe going back would change everything, but funnily enough it stayed at those two things.”

This was where Baekhyun felt the perfect opportunity rise to turn their talk a little more serious. With alcohol in front of them and Chanyeol opening the door to the topic of his leaving, Baekhyun lifted the glass to take a sip of soju and asked, “what had you hoped to achieve by leaving? Why did you go back here? Did you have a plan?”

Chanyeol stared at his own glass, which he was holding between his thumb and index finger, just as Baekhyun put down his own. His eyes became glossy, as if he was thinking back to that time, remembering what things had been like for him back then, and Baekhyun held his breath in expectation.

“I-“ a stutter, Chanyeol swallowing hard to get the lump in his throat to disappear, “I- air. I wanted to get some air, to breathe properly. I wanted more peace of mind, to worry less and not be stuck in my own guilt. I hoped seeing my family and starting over fresh would be enough to make me forget.”

They were all valid reasons for wanting to leave, but none of them were truly related to Baekhyun, which didn’t make sense to him. Because he had to be part of those reasons, right? Why else would he have left right after their fights, after having said goodbye through a letter instead of face to face.

Sure, the worries he had mentioned were probably related to the whole situation that had made them fight, with Chanyeol and Jaehyun’s past playing a big role in that, but Chanyeol hadn’t said anything about Baekhyun having been too much to deal with. Neither had he said that he had been tired of having to pretend to care, and so Baekhyun carefully started to nurture the hope he felt growing inside of him.

“And did it?” Baekhyun asked, still feeling nervous about Chanyeol making up his mind. He still expected a carelessly added, ‘oh yeah, and…’ followed by some harsh words that would leave Baekhyun bleeding again. But it didn’t come.

“In a way,” Chanyeol nodded, quickly downing half of his glass after he did, and he licked the spilled soju from his lips as he met Baekhyun’s gaze, “some things were easier to move on from than others, of course.”

Baekhyun couldn’t look away. He wanted to read what was on display in Chanyeol’s eyes, but at the same time he was so afraid of what he’d find that he ended up just staring, telling himself not to assume anything. If what he thought was there, really there, Chanyeol would tell him sooner or later. For now Baekhyun was only going to wait.

His ex-boyfriend seemed to realise that Baekhyun wasn’t going to say more, that he was waiting for something, but with this question now answered he’d have to move on to something new.

It was clear Chanyeol didn’t really know what topic to go too, but the one he chose was a good one despite the doubt that was audible in his voice. “It still amazes me that you’re actually here,” Chanyeol admitted, a wry smile gracing his face, “I didn’t just think I’d never see you again because I told you not to look for me… I thought I’d never see you again because surely you’d hate me after everything I did to you. After leaving, after that letter, I thought it would be enough to make you hate me.”

“Oh, but I did,” Baekhyun retorted without thinking twice, confirming that Chanyeol had been successful in his plan, “I did hate you. Your words hurt like a thousand daggers stabbing into me all at once. But ultimately, it was what I needed to find myself in the chaos, and eventually I ended up pitying you instead of hating you.”

Chanyeol seemed not to have expected this, not the brutal honesty nor the things Baekhyun had said, and his mouth dropped open, a sigh of disbelief leaving his chest. Baekhyun wasn’t going to apologise, though. He had every right to throw back the same words his ex-boyfriend had thrown at him, and right now he was being kind still. He could be saying so much worse.

“Do you admit it then? That you tried to make me hate you on purpose? That you were deliberately cruel in your words in order to stop me from following you here?” Baekhyun asked, sounding almost like a judge in court, but Chanyeol was still too stunned to speak.

Thinking back to that time brought back out the anger in Baekhyun, rage he felt towards Chanyeol because of how the guy had put him through such a hell for so long. He had broken Baekhyun to a point beyond repair, a point where Baekhyun had needed to start rebuilding himself from scratch all over again. And now it turned out maybe he had done so intentionally. 

True, Baekhyun was a better person now, he had rebuilt himself to become stronger and more confident in his being, but it had been a hell of a ride to get there. He had been close to losing his friends, had been an awful employee, and most of all he had lived through such sadness that he had felt like maybe he didn’t belong on earth, all because of Chanyeol’s words.

It was something Chanyeol didn’t realise, something he didn’t understand, and he never would, because he hadn’t been there to witness it. He hadn’t been the one broken, hadn’t spent weeks feeling barely alive, not in the way Baekhyun had been. Feelings or no feelings, it was impossible for Chanyeol to have felt the same heartache.

But Chanyeol didn’t seem to have any issues admitting to it. Even with how Baekhyun’s frustration had been so clear in his words, his ex-boyfriend simply huffed and confessed, “yes, that was exactly the reason I wrote it. You’re right, I was deliberately cruel, because I thought that was what was best for you. I was doing what I thought would bring you happiness in the long run.”

It was exactly the thing he shouldn’t have said. He should have stuck to a simple ‘yes’ and let it be, but he had to go and say it was all for Baekhyun’s well-being, and that didn’t sit right with the fallen one. Because it meant he had taken away Baekhyun’s chance at making that decision himself, and on purpose too.

He had gone and claimed to know what was better for the fallen one than Baekhyun himself did, and it made him burst at the seams with fire.

With that pure boiling fury coursing through his veins, Baekhyun slammed his glass down on the table so hard that it broke in his hand. His first instinct should have been to let go, but he didn’t even notice the way the broken glass cut into his palm as he balled his hand into a fist.

He couldn’t feel the pain over the fury that was coursing through him like a hurricane, leaving everything messed up and out of order. And he was right back to that first week, to feeling alone and wrecked, shattered into tiny pieces with a smashed up heart that might as well not have been there.

“You- you-“ Baekhyun uttered, unable to find the words he so desperately wanted to say, because how could he voice it all? How could he explain to Chanyeol exactly what it had felt like to have been so destroyed, so beaten and defeated, when there were no words.

His eyes filled with tears, frustration and pain washing over him like an ocean, pulling him under, and his walls broke before he could even start ranting. His shoulders were shaking as the first drops spilled from his eyes, down his cheeks and to his jaw, tickling his skin as they did.

His voice creaked as he wailed, feeling so pathetic and worn-out that he couldn’t speak anymore, and Chanyeol looked at him worriedly. It took him a moment before he noticed what had happened to the glass and Baekhyun’s hand. Then, with wide eyes, he rushed to stand up, his chair falling back after it screeched across the kitchen tiles. He bound away, rushing to get to the cupboards, all while Baekhyun fell apart more.

The fallen one slowly released his grip on the broken glass, seeing the blooddrops pop up through the small cuts in the palm of his hand, but he couldn’t feel the pain. He couldn’t feel anything but the heaviness of his heart and the dryness in his throat as he tried to stop himself from crying.

Chanyeol came running back over, this time pulling back the chair next to Baekhyun’s, and he slammed down the first-aid kid on the table with as much force as Baekhyun had done the glass.

He tried to take the fallen one’s hand then, his fingers already curling around his wrist, but Baekhyun pulled himself free. The first time.

The second time, Chanyeol was less soft in his approach. He grabbed a tight hold of Baekhyun’s wrist and pinched the fallen one’s index finger to get him to stop flailing, something which was very effective, and only then did Baekhyun go limp and let him take a look. He felt like pouting though, like a little child not getting his way.

Chanyeol took Baekhyun’s hand and rested it against his palm, using his other hand to spread Baekhyun’s fingers so he could look at the cuts properly. He ignored the way the fallen one hissed and stuck his nose up close, trying to see if the wounds were deep enough to need stitches, but once he had properly observed them he deemed they were fine.

Baekhyun was still crying as Chanyeol opened the first-aid kit, his hand hanging limply in the air as it waited for Chanyeol’s touch to return, and it was getting harder to look at him through his blurred vision, which was why he squeezed his eyes shut tightly.

It left him unprepared for the sting of alcohol to his wounds, at which he howled in pain, but Chanyeol’s grip was tight enough to keep his hand in place. He kept dabbing at it, carefully, until he noticed Baekhyun wasn’t as jumpy anymore. Only then did he let go, putting away the disinfectant so he could grab something new.

He applied a salve next, his thumb smearing the cold substance across his palm until it sealed the small scratches shut. He did all of this without saying anything at all, letting the silence rule, only interrupted occasionally by Baekhyun’s noises of pain or his sniffing as he tried to stop the tears from falling.  

The salve did its work by softening the pricking pain of the cuts, and Baekhyun let out a deep, yet irregular breath as he tried to relax himself a little more. At the same time, Chanyeol put the lid back on the salve and grabbed a gauze roll.

He placed the end of it at Baekhyun’s thumb, ready to swaddle his hand with it, and Baekhyun felt another pang of emotion in his chest, right behind his ribs where his heart should be. Suddenly realising how intimate this way, how weird it was he was letting Chanyeol take care of him like this, he felt weaker than before.

“Stop,” he begged, voice small and barely there, but Chanyeol heard him. He paused, eyes moving up from his hand to Baekhyun’s face, and Baekhyun swallowed hard as he looked at the gorgeous man in front of him.

There was no malice in his first love’s eyes, even though he wished there had been, and Baekhyun couldn’t hold it anymore. He couldn’t stay strong when he was so fragile, he couldn’t hold back how he really felt, how scared this made him, “don’t pretend to care for me if you don’t. I- I can do it myself.”

He reached out his uninjured hand, asking for Chanyeol to hand over the gauze roll, and Chanyeol’s gaze fell to the outstretched hand in front of him. He stared at it for a moment, as if it held the answers to all of his questions, and then, as Baekhyun’s sniffing snapped him out of it, he shook his head.

Chanyeol continued to wrap the gauze around Baekhyun’s injured hand, no longer looking at him at all, and he sounded poised as he said, “no.” There was a finality to the word, a certainty to the tone he had used, and Baekhyun blinked and repeated what he had said, “no?”

Again, Chanyeol shook his head, “no. Because I’m not pretending, Baekhyun.” His words were conclusive, like he was arguing with a child and would have nothing more of it, “I understand why you doubt my sincerity, but it’s true. I’m not going to stop, because I _do_ care, and I know it was my own fault, my own goddamn stupid mistake to make you think otherwise in the first place. I’m sorry for that, so let me make up for it by helping you now, okay?”

Chanyeol was right: Baekhyun doubted his sincerity. He doubted every word Chanyeol had said to him, even with the promise he had made to be honest, because so far there had been nothing at all that had really hurt to hear.

He had been left in such a painful way, with Chanyeol picking up his stuff and leaving without as much as a word, yet the man sitting in front of him didn’t fit that spiteful image. Baekhyun was trying to see it, but he couldn’t. So could he really be honest right now, or was this all another lie?

“Chanyeol?” He asked once his ex-boyfriend had finished patching him up but was still holding onto his hand. Baekhyun’s heart was beating in his throat, the touch now having turned on all his senses, and he was so scared to ask this, but it was exciting at the same time.

Meeting his gaze a little uncertainly, Chanyeol finally realised he had no reason to hold on to Baekhyun any longer, and so he let go. But it was enough, enough to make Baekhyun brave enough to ask, “you did have feelings for me, didn’t you? You lied that you hadn’t, right?”

Out came a small stutter as Chanyeol’s jaw dropped, his whole posture suddenly alerted as his first instinct told him to deny it. Baekhyun could see it from the way he inhaled and his lips parted, as if ready to speak up, but then he deflated as he pulled himself together, his head turning away almost as if ashamed.

Baekhyun was about to press it further too, to demand an honest answer, but then Chanyeol seemed to realise he was sitting too close for this moment to feel comfortable. He stood up hurriedly, before Baekhyun got a chance to push.

Taking the first-aid kit with him, he walked back to the kitchen counter, gladly taking his time as he stood with his back turned to the table. It was almost as if Baekhyun was’t there at all, like he was tidying up after having had dinner by himself, and once more they were back to where they had been at the start of their conversation.

Baekhyun was getting sick and tired of how it felt like his first love was still running from him. Running whenever Baekhyun got too close to his heart, like he didn’t want to share what was really inside of it. It felt unfair too, because Baekhyun’s own heart wasn’t even with him and yet he had no difficulty talking. Chanyeol ruled over both his heart and Baekhyun’s, and now when the fallen one asked for his honesty in return, he wasn’t getting a proper answer.

With a heavy heart he looked down at his bandaged hand, thinking of how gently Chanyeol had treated him just now, and how certain he had been that it must mean something. Because why would someone be so kind and thoughtful when they didn’t feel an ounce of compassion towards them? Unless it was pity, which he no longer thought was very likely, Baekhyun was sure it was something else.

It just didn’t make sense for Chanyeol to play him now, if he wanted that much he could have done it sooner, and he could have sent him away rudely the moment he had first seen him again. He hadn’t, which surely meant that Baekhyun was right and Chanyeol was simply denying him honesty, and that left Baekhyun feeling so incredibly frustrated that he huffed out loud, shaking his head from side to side.

“God, if you’re going to be like this, then why can’t you just act like the asshole you were in your letter? If I’m wrong…” Baekhyun laughed as he dropped his head down again, looking at the wood of the table, at the way multiple colours swirled together, “At least that way I don’t have to hope.”

He felt so frustrated with himself, wanting to both cry and curl up on himself as well as confront Chanyeol further. The guy made him feel so tired and worn-out, emotionally drained even after nothing but a few hours, and it left him ready to throw in the towel and go back home.

If Chanyeol wouldn’t say anything now, if he’d move on from this without answering, or if he’d take too long to answer, Baekhyun would get up and leave. He promised himself he would. He’d take his stuff and go, the way Chanyeol had walked out on him too. Because if he couldn’t come clean about such an easy thing as ‘old’ feelings, then how were they ever going to get anywhere?

He watched his ex-boyfriend as he hunched over, hands curling around the edges of the kitchen counter as he held on, and he moved back and forth on his heels as if he was considering what to say, but nothing came. Nothing, for what felt like an eternity, and Baekhyun was done with it.

However, it was as if Chanyeol could read him, even with his back turned to Baekhyun, because the moment the fallen one had had enough of it and was ready to push his chair away to get up, he turned around and started, talking at the speed of light, “what’s the point of it, Baekhyun?”

With his hands having dropped at his sides, Chanyeol looked wretched and like he had surrendered, his face pulled into a frown, brow puckering, “why does it matter whether I really loved you or not? I fucked up everything between us, to a point where I knew you never would forgive me again, so whether I say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, it doesn’t change anything. Wouldn’t it be crueller now if I told you I loved you after all?”

Baekhyun’s heart stopped beating as he heard those words. Because how could Chanyeol be serious about this? ‘Why did it matter’, really? It mattered because Baekhyun’s whole conception of love had been shattered when Chanyeol had told him he had no feelings for him, because his confidence had been dented after he thought he had been delusional for months. How could the idiot be so fucking blind to that?

“Honestly, you know what?” Baekhyun said, finally managing to get Chanyeol to face him, and then he sneerled with so much annoyance that he surprised even himself with it, “fuck you, Park Chanyeol.”

The fallen one wasted no more time in getting himself up and out of his chair, all but stomping over to his backpack as he felt tears of anger and frustration prickling behind his eyes. He just wanted to get out, to get away from Chanyeol because it didn’t matter what he’d say, the taller would never understand. He would keep saying stupid shit and not taking this as seriously as he should, and Baekhyun was finished.

He didn’t look back once on his way to his bag, which was how he had missed the way his ex-boyfriend had leapt forwards to rush after him, the hand on his shoulder startling him. Jumping in his skin, Baekhyun was momentarily caught off guard, and that gave Chanyeol the time he needed to secure his hold on him before he could break free and run off.

Two arms sneaked around his upper body, locking around his chest and holding on to his shoulders as Chanyeol tucked the fallen one’s back into his chest. The taller’s breathing was rapid and could be felt against the shell of Baekhyun’s ear, his nose clearly pressed into his hair, against his skull, and it was without a doubt much too intimate for them to be acceptable at this point in time. 

Baekhyun froze, became totally unmoving, and with a start he realised that he was actually leaning back into the touch. Like it was a habit he had missed dearly, his body was responding to the touch like it was the air that it craved to survive, making it a fight between his heart and his mind as Baekhyun thought of how he couldn’t, of how he _shouldn’t,_ be doing this. 

And his mind won, by a landslide.

He broke away, using his free hand to cut the chain of Chanyeol’s arms, and he took a few steps to get some distance between them before he turned to face him and got to a stand-still. He stayed there, one hand outstretched towards his ex-boyfriend, who was looking more unsure and guiltier than ever before.

“No,” Baekhyun only murmured, shaking his head slowly, “stop- stop that, Chanyeol. You can’t keep pushing and pulling, going from one thing to the next within seconds. I can’t take it. I can’t take how you- how much of a damn idiot you are.”

He was about to burst into tears again, feeling so lost now, and so he sucked his lower lip between his teeth and worried on it, using the pain as a distraction from crying. “’What does it matter’ you say?” He sighed, “it matters everything, Chanyeol. You made me feel so stupid for loving you when I thought I didn’t mean shit to you, and I felt even worse when I couldn’t stop feeling that way. It matters, okay, I wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

“Does it really?” Chanyeol snapped in return, making his point clear once more, “it doesn’t change how I was an asshole, neither does it change how I felt back when we had a fought: torn up and confused. I didn’t fake the insecurity I felt about my past with Jaehyun, okay?”

Baekhyun didn’t immediately reply, he was trying to make up his mind about whether he believed Chanyeol or not, and the taller took it as another moment to convince him. “Fine, say I tell you I loved you,” he proposed, “would that make everything suddenly better? Would it change things?”

He threw his hands into the air and turned his gaze up to the ceiling, “would you believe it? Would you think I really loved _you_ instead of the memory of Jaehyun? After I told you about my struggles and made it seem like that was all you were to me: a way to fix my shit with him?”

Baekhyun was quiet, not yet sure what he should answer to these questions, but Chanyeol didn’t give him any room to breathe at all anyway, “besides, you’re with Tae-ho, right? Or you were, but that still means you managed to move on from me. Whether I loved you or not, it’s probably better this way.”

Before Baekhyun could even register what happened, he watched Chanyeol staggering back, holding onto his cheek. From the sting he felt in his palm he realised he must have been the one to cause that, slapping the idiot in the face, but he didn’t feel sorry at all. He was all but screaming, his voice breaking on every other word as he was such a mess, “I can’t believe… you selfish little-“

He hunched over, holding onto his own stomach as he was afraid his legs would give, “it’s not the same. Tae-ho… you _know_ it’s not the same. I never loved him, I longed to get you back every time I was with him. You fucking- I-  I never stopped loving you, not even now. I went through the worst heartbreak when you left and still I love you. You think lying like that was all for the better? Like you have any right to decide that for me?”

Chanyeol was eerily quiet as he let Baekhyun speak, but the fallen one didn’t dare look at him in fear he would lose his courage, “no, no Chanyeol, you’re wrong. It was not for the better, not at all, I wasted a year loving you. You’re standing here not even man enough to admit the truth. Even if it doesn’t fucking matter, like you think it does, you can’t even say it. So why should I stay?”

He let the question hang in the air, giving Chanyeol only a little bit of time to come up with an answer, but when he wasn’t fast enough with it, Baekhyun turned around again. His hand was already on the doorknob, about to press it down so he could walk out the way he had done the night of their previous fight as well, but he paused. Could he do it again? Walk away like this, now knowing it was forever?

His doubt was a moment of weakness, it lasted long enough for Chanyeol to clear his thoughts some and to throw out the first thing that came to mind to him, which was as ridiculous and unbelievable as half of the shit Chanyeol had told him since they had sat down together.

“Because I- I’m nothing without you,” the voice behind him said, sounding fragile and nervous, and only a second later Chanyeol laughed dryly, “I know that sounds pathetic as hell coming from me, knowing everything I’ve just said, but I don’t want you to walk away again. Please, Baekhyun, I promise I’ll stop looking for excuses, just please sit down again and hear me out.”

The begging tone to Chanyeol’s words made him hesitate, his hold on the doorknob loosening. A part of Baekhyun really wanted to leave, feeling like it was pointless because so far his ex-boyfriend had kept playing games with him, talking in riddles and refusing to answer him. But his curiosity, his hope to finally have gotten it through that thick skull, it overpowered that desire.

When he dropped his backpack and turned around, which was answer enough, Chanyeol seemed to heave a sigh of relief. He stepped closer to Baekhyun, his hand reaching out as if he wanted to touch him, but then thought better of it. Instead he moved it to point towards the other side of the kitchen, to the doorway there, “let’s settle in the living room instead.”

Baekhyun took a deep breath as he watched Chanyeol a little warily, but then he nodded and followed him there. It wasn’t as big as Baekhyun had expected it to be, but the room looked homey and warm, with modern furniture that didn’t feel too out of place. It looked lived in without being messy, and Baekhyun liked it.

Chanyeol, who walked past the couch and on to a small table on the far end of the room, started talking before Baekhyun could sit down, his tone a little rushed, “I’m sorry that I keep continuing to be this much of a jerk, but I simply don’t know how to behave around you now. I don’t want to give myself hope, the same way you don’t want to, so I guess it’s making me say the wrong things.”

He bent down and started opening some drawers, still continuing to talk as he did, “but I did mean what I said, as grossly exaggerated as it sounds...” Baekhyun watched him pick something up out of the drawer and then he closed it again, standing and turning around before he said anything more.

As he stood there his whole body looked a little restless, really as if he knew it was hard to take his words seriously, but he repeated them anyway. He looked smaller as he did, his shoulders hunching, and it sounded like a confession the way he shyly looked down at his feet, “I’m nothing without you.”

He waited for another moment, maybe for Baekhyun to laugh at him or something, or maybe he was expecting an answer, but when he realised that the fallen one wasn’t going to speak up anytime soon, he had been told to hear him out after all, he sighed and looked up. “If you really don’t believe me, ask Nora, or my parents – although that may not be a wise as, you know, the Jaehyun thing -,” he mentioned briefly, “but yeah, it’s true.”

“I didn’t start working at this school until three months after I arrived here. Those first three months I spent mostly holed up inside, until winter turned into spring and gave me the ability to go outside again,” Chanyeol walked closer to Baekhyun, both hands holding on to something rectangular in his hands, “I did a lot of things in those three months. Nora was like a therapist for me in that time too, which really made me appreciate her more.”

“Whenever she was home she’d make sure I’d behave like a human being. She made me shower and eat and sat me down to talk for longer period of times, and slowly but surely the mess inside of me started to untangle.”

The taller sat down next to Baekhyun on the couch, keeping enough space between them to be appropriate, but also not wanting to be too far away from him, “my head became clear again, things were put into perspective, and I realised that with a lot of my issues resolved, I still missed you. It was around that time that I knew I had really fucked up, but like, fucked up bad. Because not only had I sprouted a ton of lies to you thinking and hoping maybe they were half-truths so that I could justify them to myself, I had also ruined any possible chance of me ever fixing things.”

Chanyeol ended up staring at the object in his hands, which Baekhyun now came to see was a pile of letters, and he chuckled at it, “I guess I tried. Every week of every month, I wrote you a letter. Like I was some heartbroken teen in a drama, writing the most despairing things in an attempt to come clean. I never found the courage to send them, though.”

He flipped through some of the envelopes, which all held Baekhyun’s old address, “I thought you wouldn’t want to read them, and by the time I finally felt a little surer of myself I remembered it was likely you had long since gone to heaven, and so I had found another excuse not to send them, but I never stopped writing them.”

Then he handed the pile of envelopes to Baekhyun, who took them from his hold and placed them in his lap. Once his hands were empty Chanyeol sat back, as if handing this part of himself over made him a lot lighter, “no matter the outcome of our story, of what happens next, I want you to take them. It explains a lot about why I did what I did, more than I can tell you right now.”

Baekhyun’s fingers traced across the piece of rope that kept the letters together, resting on the bow tied in the middle, and he took a deep breath as Chanyeol grew quiet. He let Baekhyun look and touch, counting the letters with his index finger and tracing the letters of his old address.

It was overwhelming, to hold so much of Chanyeol’s thoughts and feelings in his hands, knowing that this was all he had missed out on those months they had been apart, and the knowledge of how much bigger the pile could have gotten, how it could still do if Baekhyun were to leave… it was a strange feeling.

With careful fingers, Baekhyun undid the tie around the letters, taking an envelope of one of the first written letters on top, dated a few weeks after their break-up. He turned it over in his hands and got out the piece of paper that had been folded up inside of the envelope. He didn’t know if reading it was smart, but he couldn’t hold himself back.

Unfolding the paper, a mess of words greeted him. There were sentences completely blacked out, scratched so hard there were some tears in the paper, but other parts looked like they had been written in such a soft manner, like the words had really been thought about before having been put to paper. It was rather fitting.  

 

_‘Dear Baekhyun,_

_When a thousand ‘I’m sorry’s aren’t enough to mend what I have broken, what else is there to say? If an apology is meaningless, then whatever else I feel is even less important. But just in case a part of you will believe my words, or even if you’ll just listen to me, I will be happy._

_Because I haven’t been well without you, Baek. I know that if you believe me when I say that, it means I haven’t succeeded at making you hate my guts. In which case I should probably feel ecstatic, but I don’t think I can be. How could I when you are no longer mine, and I only have myself to blame for it?_

_I thought I had made the right decision when I first left, told myself I only missed you because you’re in Jaehyun’s body, and so getting over never seeing your face in my life again, for the second time, would be just as hard as the first time. But it’s been two months and I still cannot get you out of my head, not for the life of me._

_Why did I allow myself to make such a life-changing decision while being controlled by my panicked brain? Why wasn’t I honest with you when we had that fight? Why couldn’t I be honest? Maybe then you wouldn’t have walked away from me and tried to hold on instead. Maybe then, in the end, I would still have you now._

_Because I miss you. I miss you more than you can imagine. Our walks, our singing together with me playing guitar, and your cold nose pressed to my neck whenever you’d snuggle up to me. I miss your laughter, I miss being called Yeol, and most of all I miss that way you used to gasp every time I would surprise you with a kiss, the way your lips would part in shock before you’d kiss me back._

_I’m so stupid…_

_When I gave myself plenty of time to get to know you, back when we first got together, I made sure that I didn’t only care for you because of your appearance and the resemblance to Jaehyun. I was so certain back then that I liked you for you, but I wasn’t strong enough to make it last. One moment of weakness, of insecurity, where old memories reared their ugly heads, and I was no longer sure._

_I should have given us time, I should have given myself a moment to breathe and think it trough, but I fled. I fled the way I had so often wanted to do with Jaehyun but had been too scared to. With how much you changed me, for the better, I was finally able to. But I regret it now, I regret it so much._

_It’s not a case of ‘you don’t know what you had until you lost it’. I knew what I had; an angel in the purest sense of the word, someone who loved me unreservedly and who cared more about my feelings than his own. I know I was lucky, I knew it back then too, but all it takes is a second to end a relationship._

_In nothing but a few words I had ruined us. I was horrible enough to play with your emotions the way Jaehyun once used to play with mine. The only difference was that Jaehyun’s threats had been empty, while I pulled through and actually left. I knew I had happiness, and still I threw it away. In my own insecurities I thought of you and your happiness, and combined they created the mess we are now in._

_When you walked out on me after I pushed you aside, I was afraid, because I had been so rude that I knew you wouldn’t just forgive me. My mind was filled with thoughts about how maybe you’d run back to Tae-ho, or maybe you’d reconsider your promise about staying here, instead thinking about leaving me to get back to heaven._

_I had fallen so far that I had ended up in the pit of the well, suffering from anxiety and overthinking everything, and I ended up at a point where I was certain you’d leave me forever. If not now, then later. If not by going to heaven, then through something else. I knew someone this good wouldn’t last for me, it never had and never would, and so I ruined us before you could ruin me._

_I wrote that letter, packed my stuff, and ran. Not thinking about your feelings at all, because I was convinced that one day you’d understand and would be thankful for the life that me setting you free would have given you. I really believed in that, and maybe I still do._

_I’m not as perfect as I made myself seem, Baekhyun. I’m far from it. My life was a huge chaos before you entered it, and for the first few weeks after we met, I wore a mask to cover up my sadness. Sadness you slowly chased away, making me fall in love with you so fast that it was overwhelming and mind-boggling._

_But we weren’t meant to be, I made sure of that. Maybe in another life we will end up together. Maybe in a different universe I’m a better person, making better decisions, and we can be happy with each other there. It’s all I can hope for now._

_I love you,_

_Chanyeol’_

 

Folding the letter back in half, Baekhyun noticed how dry his mouth had gone. It was as if he was trying to swallow sandpaper in order to get rid of the large lump in his throat Chanyeol’s words had left him with.

Next to him Chanyeol sat, unmoving, as he waited for Baekhyun to do or say anything in reply to what he had just read, but Baekhyun found himself unable to. The letter had been so honest, there was no doubt about that, but that had made it even harder to read.

Because they had wasted so much time being apart when they could have been working things out together, the way Chanyeol had talked about in his letter. But they hadn’t, they had stayed away from each other, and the question was whether it was too late now.

Had they surpassed the point where they could make it work? Was fixing things even what Baekhyun wanted if it was a possibility? Because although it wasn’t the case that he doubted Chaneol’s feelings any longer, he did still worry about how much more it would hurt if they were to break up again in the future. Would he survive opening his heart to Chanyeol once more?

“Can I- can I use your bathroom?” Baekhyun stammered, already getting to his feet so he could put the letters away on the table, where they didn’t feel as intimidating as when he was holding them. He knew he was the one running now, just like Chanyeol had, but all he needed was a moment to think and get himself together, and the taller would have to understand how that was all.

His first love tuned out his disappointment and forced a smile on his face, something Baekhyun hated but didn’t have the heart to comment on now. Chanyeol nodded as he pointed towards the hallway on the other side of the room, “yeah, it’s the first door on the right.”

Baekhyun didn’t even mutter a thank you before he was walking away from Chanyeol, his hands pressed to his pants to keep them from trembling, despite the pain it caused to the cuts in his palm. He ignored it all and made a dash for the door the second he was out of sight.

It slammed shut behind him after he had stepped inside, and he locked it quickly, his heart racing in his chest as if he had gotten chased down the hallway. He stood leaning against the door for a few seconds, but his legs were shaking just as much as his hands, and so he walked over to the toilet, put down the seat and sat down on it.

Leaning on his knees with his elbows, he focused on his breathing. The words he had seen on paper were still blinking behind his closed eyelids, and he could almost hear Chanyeol’s voice saying them out loud. It was too much to take, all of this. So much had been happening that it almost felt surreal, like a dream. Yeah, that was exactly what it felt like: a dream.

Once more in life Baekhyun felt like he had everything to lose with the choice that had been put in front of him. He could either put in his all to give his relationship with Chanyeol a second chance, or he could politely thank him for being honest and sharing his story, but he couldn’t forgive him for the pain he had caused him. Those were his two options, and Baekhyun wasn’t convinced about his options yet.

Most of all he was scared of choosing the wrong thing, afraid that giving in to what he wanted, which was to start over with Chanyeol, would lead to him losing everything again. And that was scary now he had more on the line now, with a better apartment and a job he couldn’t stay home from for too long. Knowing heartbreak had knocked him down once, it could do so again.

What kept him from jumping into the deep end of the pool and facing this new opportunity with Chanyeol, was the memory of his past, and as he sat there on the toilet seat he suddenly understood very well what had happened to his first love when he had panicked. Baekhyun was experiencing it himself right now.

Just like Chanyeol’s memories to Jaehyun had made it hard for him to deal with falling in love for the second time in his life, it was Baekhyun’s memory of heartache that was making it difficult for him to decide too. This was exactly what Chanyeol had gone through, what had made him fall apart in front of Baekhyun and had made him push him away: the uncertainty, the possible tragedy at the end of the road.

But Baekhyun knew it was pointless to avoid tragedy. It could hit at times where you least expected it to, his fall was proof of that, or it could take forever to get there. At the end of the day every life would come to an end, and so tragedy was inevitable. Even if they would stay together forever, eventually death would pull them apart.

The question was how much time they’d have, and well, that made it a little easier, because Baekhyun swore he’d rather spend one year with Chanyeol than ten on his own, he didn’t even have to think about that.

No matter how they would end, the fact stayed that they would one day, and it would hurt then, but up till then, at least they could try. Right?

And if they got together and were to find out that things were no longer working between them, with the whole fighting and year apart having left too many scars and changes, they could always decide to end things again too. To assume right now that they wouldn’t, that was simply thinking destructively. It was making up excuses to avoid the confrontation of their feelings.

Baekhyun was scared, he was absolutely frightened, but he couldn’t keep blaming Chanyeol. He understood what had happened to him, now more than ever, and knowing that he had already forgiven the one who still owned his heart, he stood up with fresh determination.

He would go out there and give Chanyeol a choice. He would not shy away from showing vulnerability in order to open up completely, hoping he would be accepted in the same way in return. And if Chanyeol was being truthful in his words, he’d catch Baekhyun and hold on to him, never to let go again. If he did, that would be all the confirmation he needed.

Although he hadn’t even used the toilet, he still walked to the sink to turn on the tap and splash some water into his face with the hand that wasn’t bandaged. It was a good thing to do too, because the cold woke up his senses and made his face tingle as he gasped for air, and he tipped his head up so the water could drip down his face.

He stared at himself in the mirror while drops fell from his chin, and he snorted as he took himself in. It wasn’t a sight for sore eyes, that much was certain. His eyes were bloodshot from the tears and he looked rather tired, bags under his eyes that were clearly visible, and his hair was like a disorganised red birds’ nest on top of his head. He looked as much a mess as he felt.

“My god,” he murmured to himself, chuckling again as he thought of himself flirting with Chanyeol looking like this. If this had been his first shot with him it would have been doomed to fail, but luckily it wasn’t their first chance. They had cried together before, this wasn’t a new sight for Chanyeol, and it was probably why he hadn’t commented on it before either.

Baekhyun smiled at himself, feeling much lighter than before he had entered the bathroom, and it left him almost excited to go out and tell Chanyeol what he had come to conclude. How could he tell him? What would be an appropriate way to share what he wanted without coming across as strange? Did it actually really matter? Knowing Chanyeol the stranger his flirting, the better. He would laugh that cute loud-

He stopped thinking when his eye fell down, to the right side of the sink where two cups stood in the small space between the tap and the cupboard on its right. Two cups, the one on the left being pink and holding an electric toothbrush, but that wasn’t the one Baekhyun was paying attention to.

His eye had found the one on the right, a cup that was white and held two normal toothbrushes: Chanyeol’s regular brand one, this time in blue instead of green the way it had been back in Seoul, and next to it stood a red one. The same red one Baekhyun had used those times he used to stay over at Chanyeol’s place.

Three toothbrushes in a house of two, one of those three being the one Baekhyun had used, and that made him choke up unexpectedly.

Chanyeol had brought Baekhyun’s spare one with him? He had kept it in the cup alongside his ever since? Even though he had been the one to break up with Baekhyun, he still hadn’t thrown out his toothbrush the way he had done with all the other people he had been with before Baekhyun? Maybe it was because none of those had been serious to him, or maybe it was because he had left still loving Baekhyun, but it meant something.

Baekhyun was glad he had gotten to see it before he had left the bathroom, knowing Chanyeol of course wouldn’t have said such a thing himself, because it was the final push he needed to become sure of his decision. And now that he had, he wanted to go back outside.

Now he needed to see that stupid idiot’s face so he could tell him that for some completely unfathomable reason, Baekhyun still wanted him.

He threw open the door after he had unlocked it, his hands fumbling with it impatiently, and he skipped back into the living room, where he skirted to a stop as he saw Chanyeol on the couch with his hands in his hair, looking like he was pulling out the strands. He looked stressed out, like he was really fucking nervous and anxious because Baekhyun had stayed out so long, and the fallen one felt himself thinking of how cute it was.

Smiling to himself, he decided to speak up and let Chanyeol know he had returned, his voice soft and loving as he shared what he had found out last, “you kept my toothbrush?” It came out a question, even though he knew the answer already, but it did its trick and made Chanyeol’s head shoot up.

The guy stared at him, eyes wide in surprise at the question, and he licked his lips before he stuttered an unsure, “I- yeah, I mean-“ and Baekhyun could tell he was looking for an apology. Chanyeol wanted to apologise for it because he worried Baekhyun would be mad, as if he was sure the fallen one would be leaving now that he had seen how creepy he was, but Baekhyun wouldn’t let him.

“Cute,” he interrupted, making sure Chanyeol wouldn’t get around to actually saying anything more, “I didn’t expect to see that, but more so I didn’t anticipate for it to make me feel this way. So… relieved.” He smiled, hands hanging limply at his sides as he stood there, still a few steps away from the couch.

A look of shock passed across Chanyeol’s face, and he closed his mouth and swallowed visibly. His gaze had dropped to Baekhyun’s chest as he thought this through, and as he waited, the fallen one pressed his fingers into his thighs as a distraction from how nervous he felt. This was only the first tiny step towards sharing what he wanted, but it was already scary enough.

“I guess I can say that I understand now what you went through, as I am currently experiencing it myself,” he spoke when Chanyeol stayed quiet, at a loss for words at whatever reason, “because I’m scared, Yeol. I’m terrified of ending up in the same place as you left me in before, but I still love you. Despite what you put me through, I love you.”

His voice was full on trembling on the final words, it was so clear he was nervous and close to having an actual panic attack, including hyperventilation and a lot more tears, but he held his breath simply because he wanted to catch Chanyeol’s reaction. He wanted to hear his reply to Baekhyun’s blunt honesty.

However, Chanyeol only pursed his lips and looked at the ground rather hard, as if any answers could be found there. It almost came across as pained, the way his eyes were set and his whole posture frozen, and he was clearly utterly lost in his mind now, the way Baekhyun had been ten minutes earlier when he had first opened the letter. But Baekhyun could only wait for so long.

“Come on now,” he laughed nervously when nothing came, not even after a minute, “are you really going to leave me hanging like that? Not saying a thing now? When I put myself on the line again thinking this was what you wanted too-“ he was rambling, full on losing it, and he completely missed how his breathing had started to grow irregular.

Until Chanyeol raised his hand to stop Baekhyun from talking, which the fallen one did, instantly. He was trembling all over still, his fingers hurting from the way his nails were pushing into his skin through his pants. The cuts in his palm were burning, but it all faded away, as if he had been numbed. His lower lip had been sucked between his teeth unconsciously, and he bit down hard to stop himself from losing it.

Chanyeol stood up, his movements slow and deliberate, and he met Baekhyun’s gaze as he took the first step towards him. It was a surprise to see the glassy look in his first love’s eyes, because the way he had sat there had made Baekhyun fear that maybe he had been thinking about how to let him down easy, but apparently that wasn’t it.

There was as much emotion in Chanyeol’s eyes as there was likely in his own, and when the taller reached him and raised a hand to let his fingers graze across Baekhyun’s jaw, the fallen one finally let out the breath he had been holding. His knees were close to giving in again, but this time he didn’t run away, in fact he pressed closer.

Stepping into Chanyeol’s space, he wrapped his arms around the taller’s waist, pushing himself into his chest rather abruptly. It caused the fingers on his face to drop, but Baekhyun didn’t care, he curled himself around Chanyeol and pressed his head to his shoulder, holding on tight. Tighter than ever before.

Chanyeol seemed startled by this, because for the longest time he didn’t respond, did nothing at all. It really felt like forever before he raised his arms and wrapped them around Baekhyun in return, and he dropped his lips to the fallen one’s head to kiss his hair.

It was almost soft, hadn’t it been so emotional, because the kiss was enough to make Baekhyun squeeze him tightly. In turn, Chanyeol spluttered as he gasped for air, but he didn’t push Baekhyun away from him to achieve that. He only turned his head away, making sure he could breathe even with the way his lungs had been constricted, but it was still too far away for Baekhyun’s liking.

He really tried to loosen his grip so that Chanyeol wouldn’t have to shy away from him, but it didn’t feel close enough that way either, and so he stayed sort of in the middle. He only adjusted his arms until he could feel how far Chanyeol’s ribs expanded as he inhaled, and he kept them there, not too loose and not too tight.

It was warm, and perfect, so goddamn perfect that Baekhyun wanted to cry again. He hadn’t been held in a long time, not like this, and in a sense it was as if his heart had been returned to him like this. With their chests pressed together, he could feel it beat behind his ribcage. He could feel the blood pumping through his veins as every sense was heightened, every touch electrifying.

Chanyeol. It was Chanyeol. It had always been him, and it would always be him. Baekhyun knew it now, realised that fighting it was pointless. Trying to move on from him was pointless too, because no one else was like his Yeol.

Of course the break up was a difficult thing to move past. It was like a splinter underneath a nail; painful and difficult to get rid off, sure. But it was also something they could fix. Splinters could be removed, and it would take some time for the pain to go away, but it would. Eventually.

And their love had been strong before, consuming and uncontrollable, which meant that it could be that way again. If they would both decide to look past their own insecurities, if they both took this new knowledge to protect each other from making bad decisions again, they could make it work together. They could be better, stronger than before.

Because back then, in a matter of weeks they had grown close, their hearts had started beating in sync and their hands had entwined like the branches of a tree growing together. It had been reckless, but it had been real. Like a shooting star in the sky, they had lit up and soared through the air, and although it had seemed that that had been their fate; to shine brightly only for a short time, it didn’t feel like that anymore.

It felt like their star had decided against it, choosing to no longer fall and to instead stay in the sky waiting for its chance to be lit up by love again. And it was happening now, Baekhyun could tell. He felt the hand on his lower back, fingers pressing into his skin, and Chanyeol’s lips were back to his skin, now kissing his temple. And that was how it started.

In the pit of his stomach, a fire began to burn brightly, the flame still small but longing to grow, for oxygen to feed it, and so Baekhyun slowly turned his head and pressed a kiss to the juncture between Chanyeol’s neck and shoulder, feeling the thumping of his heart increase along with it.

After the sharp intake of breath on Chanyeol’s side, Baekhyun closed his eyes and dropped his nose to the taller’s collar bone. They remained standing in silence for a little longer, but Baekhyun still hadn’t received an answer, and until he would, he couldn’t let the fire inside of him grow any more.

And so he asked.

“Chanyeol?” he breathed out against the other’s skin, his hands fisting the taller’s shirt as he did, “do you love me?”

He was aware it was a blunt question, but whereas before he had been afraid of what the answer to this question would be, he no longer was and it made him braver than before. He already knew how Chanyeol really felt, all he needed now was to hear it get confirmed so he could allow himself to dream about what lay ahead of them. All that was missing was an affirmation on Chanyeol’s side.

But Chanyeol didn’t answer him straight away, even though his reply should have been easy to utter. Rather than replying, he wurmed himself out of Baekhyun’s hold slightly, which for a moment got him to panic as old memories flooded back.

The taller was quick to hush him, though, having expected the reaction already, and he laughed quietly as he continued to pull back just enough to get one hand up to the fallen one’s face, which he used to lift Baekhyun’s chin up towards him.

He made their eyes meet like that, and Baekhyun could see the answer to his question swirling around in a pool of emotions inside Chanyeol’s irises. More than that, he stared at Baekhyun so passionately that the fallen one felt shivers run down his spine as his legs became so heavy it felt like his feet had been glued to the floor, all while he waited in anticipation.

The tip of Chanyeol’s thumb brushed against the small dimple in his chin, his index finger still at the shorter’s jaw, and Baekhyun swallowed hard as he waited for something to happen.

His ex-boyfriend sure took his sweet time finding his voice, leaving Baekhyun hanging, although not in uncertainty. Baekhyun already knew after all, his eyes really said enough. Still, it was a relief when Chanyeol’s tongue darted out to wet his lips, after which he opened his mouth and inhaled deeply.

As he exhaled, his eyes dropped to where his fingers were holding onto Baekhyun’s chin and then back up to where his mouth was, and he confessed, _finally_ confessed, “yeah, I do.”

The hand under his chin moved, sliding across his jaw until it cupped his cheek, fingertips reaching behind his ear where they massaged his scalp. Baekhyun leaned into it, his heart now on his tongue as it was beating its way out of his chest.

Chanyeol loved him, he had admitted it, and Baekhyun believed him. He felt it in the way his first love caressed his face so lovingly, could tell it from the small smile tugging at his lips and the way his eyes still showed so much of himself. Like a window to his soul, allowing Baekhyun to look inside in a way he had never been able to before.

Those eyes were taking in every piece of him, as if Chanyeol still believed he was nothing but a mirage that could disappear before his eyes at any second. He was watching him, commiting this moment to memory the way Baekhyun was as well, and only when Baekhyun’s hands moved to his hips in order to stable himself, did Chanyeol snap out of it.

He smiled as Baekhyun laughed at himself for being so drowsy, unable to keep standing on his feet like this, and in a response to it, Chanyeol tugged the shorter a little closer again. Until they were breathing each other’s oxygen, standing so close that their noses were almost touching, and the hand that wasn’t still on Baekhyun’s face slid down his back to hold him close.

Chanyeol looked down into Baekhyun’s eyes, the difference in height as intimidating as ever, and so the shorter didn’t speak. He didn’t have to either, because Chanyeol was doing so, his words whispered in the small space between their faces, “God, do I want to kiss you. So badly.”

The words robbed Baekhyun of his breath, of his voice too, because all he could do was look up with wide eyes as his heart all but plummeted down his body, a feeling so similar to the free fall ride he had been on with Chanyeol at Lotte world one day, back when they had been together.

His jaw dropped a little, making him gape like a fish out of water, but it was the only way Baekhyun could breathe. However, it was so unromantic that he felt embarrassed with himself, and soon a blush was decorating his face. Chanyeol only laughed and brought their noses together more.

“I want to kiss you, Baek,” he repeated, “I’ve been dreaming of doing so far too often.” The hand that had been cradling his face slid up farther, until it was tangled in Baekhyun’s hair, and the fallen one keened at the touch as a humiliating whine left his lips. It made Chanyeol be bolder, asking, “can I?”

Thinking about those lips on his, about past kisses with Chanyeol, it made him nervous, and any chance of him recovering his voice had been completely lost now. He couldn’t speak and couldn’t move, so stuck in his own head as he thought of them kissing.

This wasn’t at all what he had expected to happen today when he had gotten on the train to Anyang in the early morning. He had at the utmost expected to talk to Chanyeol, and even with that he had anticipated to be met with a stubbornness that was too difficult to get past, but he had been wrong. It was a pleasant surprise, but it left him unable to say anything now.

He would have to communicate the answer on his tongue in a different way, and he did so by using his head, which – thankfully – allowed movement. It nodded along to the ‘yes’ Baekhyun was internally screaming, his nerves in control of his vocal cords still.

Chanyeol laughed, that type of laugh that made his eyes scrunch up and disappear from view, the type that made his whole face brighten, and that lightened Baekhyun’s heart. The sound of it was beautiful too, and it subdued the rapid beat of his heart to a more comfortable pace, as if it recognised that sound and knew it was okay now.

Frankly, it was a little magical, the way Chanyeol could so easily kill any doubt growing inside of him. It shouldn’t be possible, it was dangerous too, but Baekhyun couldn’t help but feel careless and daring. With every chance of hitting the ground at the end of his fall, he gave himself to Chanyeol for the second time. As Chanyeol gave himself back in return.

The taller tilted his head, their noses still touching as he did, but Baekhyun knew to expect that touch to be lost soon enough as it would make place for something better. Something more heart-fluttering, something that would be known as the first stitch to their hearts that signalled the start of their healing.

And it was exactly the way he felt when Chanyeol’s lips met his, soft and a little hesitantly. It hurt, but in a good way, a pain he knew was meant to indicate the end of his suffering. The press of their mouths was sweet, and Baekhyun could feel the roughness of where his first love had bitten at his lips earlier, but that made it all the better. It made it real.

Chanyeol kissed him as if he was delicate, as if one wrong move could break them again, and in a way that was true, but all Baekhyun wanted now was to be kissed, _really_ kissed. Kissed in a way that made him feel how much Chanyeol had missed him, in a way that made him forget everything for a little while so they could just be the way they were now.

It was why he pressed back, deepening the kiss by himself, until he was kissing Chanyeol so hard that the taller opened up for him, something the shorter gladly took advantage of. Baekhyun got up on his tip-toes, his hands sliding up Chanyeol’s back until he could hold on to his shoulderblades as he kissed into the taller’s mouth. It drew out a low moan from Chanyeol’s chest, one that made the butterflies inside go crazy, and Baekhyun hummed back in agreement.

The sound got Chanyeol kicking into motion, his hand leaving Baekhyun’s hair so he could hold on to his hips as he started taking steps backward. Baekhyun followed, all but stumbling over his own feet as they tried to keep their mouths locked in a kiss, but neither of them laughed at it, too preoccupied with other things.

Chanyeol fell back on the couch almost in slow-motion, making sure Baekhyun was moving along with him, and when he sat back, the fallen one was seated in his lap. He ended up sitting on Chanyeol’s left thigh, but he easily flipped himself over, getting a knee over Chanyeol’s so he could straighten his upper body.

Seated like that he gained a bit more height, leaving him able to kiss the taller without having to strain for it. Both his hands came up to hold Chanyeol’s face as he was the one to initiate the kiss this time, while his lover regained his grip on Baekhyun’s hips. It wasn’t rushed, even though their position may suggest so, and it wasn’t sensual either. It was a rediscovery of each other, a road down the past back to where they had started off together.

While he sat there, simultaneously he was back in Seoul, back on a cold winter’s day. He was back walking in the snow, breath freezing in the air but his hand warm in Chanyeols grasp. He was back to the bar, to their noses being cold as they kissed each other goodbye in front of Minseok.

While he sat there, he was back in his old apartment, his back pressed to his front door as Chanyeol kissed him senseless, having made up his mind about them finally. With hands on his face in a similar fashion to the way he was touching Chanyeol now, their relationship had become official, signed by the love they had made on Baekhyun’s bed.

While he sat there, he was back in at the large windows of Chanyeol’s apartment, cuddling Toben to his chest while he looked outside to see the world keeping on turning. It was the night after Chanyeol had first kissed him, had first touched him too, and with his romantic outlook on life, that had been where he had imagined what his life could have turned into, what life could have been like living with Chanyeol.

And while he sat there, he was back out on the street where it had all started. Where he had been lost in his music until a stranger had walked into him, their paths crossing for the very first time. He remembered how beautiful Chanyeol had looked, his detailed image rooted in his mind, but he was more handsome now. He was more Baekhyun’s than he had been back then, too, and that changed a lot.

All the mixed feelings coursing through him got him distracted, thinking about other things than the kiss, but Chanyeol only tightened his grip to pull him back to the there and now, where they were still making out. However, it was hard not to think about the past.

It felt as if Baekhyun was ending another chapter in their book. Thinking back to their first meeting, their old apartments and all the memories made in Seoul, he realised they belonged to a chapter that had ended. This kiss however, was a fresh start.

It inked the first sentences of the next chapter in the paper, which Baekhyun’s mind titled ‘the second try’, and the care with which the words were being engraved into the paper, it left him feeling hopeful.

“Wait, where is Toben?” Baekhyun asked then, breaking apart mid-kiss, as it was the first time he realised the absence of paws against the floor and the cute little bark that had usually greeted them whenever he’d visit Chanyeol. He looked down at him, his hands still on his love’s face, and the idiot smiled up at him.

“Ah, he’s with my parents. I’m working more now than before so it was kind of difficult to keep him here. That, and Nora is pretty allergic to dogs, so,” Chanyeol shrugged and quickly gazed into Baekhyun’s eyes to see if there was more he wanted to know.

When he saw nothing there, he pushed his face forwards again, capturing Baekhyun’s lips once more. The shorter tsked against Chanyeol’s lips, but he still let himself be dragged into another intense kiss, one where Chanyeol took the lead this time. He pried Baekhyun’s lips apart, licking into his mouth while being a lot less hesitant than before. It was nice, though, to feel Chanyeol kiss him the way he knew Baekhyun liked being kissed, showing how he hadn’t forgotten.

Baekhyun’s eyes slipped shut again as he keened, going limp in Chanyeol’s hold as he focused on breathing through his nose and kissing back rather than have it overwhelm him to a point where he couldn’t do anything but take and not give.

Eventually, the long, deep kiss turned into an abundance of smaller, close-mouthed pecks that left Chanyeol whining just as frustratingly as earlier. Baekhyun couldn’t help but hold back his smile as he broke their kiss and he pressed his cheek to Chanyeol’s, staying near to him but allowing himself a moment to breathe.

As he did, he heard his ex-boyfriend ask, a little uncertainly, “Baek? What do we do now?”

The reality of the situation was quickly dawning on them. Because although they were now happily kissing each other, the truth was that they weren’t officially back together, and Baekhyun lived in Seoul while Chanyeol lived here. They had created separate lives, lives away from each other, and they had built up new futures, ones that didn’t include each other. Was there any space left for them to fit in?

There had to be. Baekhyun didn’t want to think about anything holding them back from trying again. He hadn’t come this far, hadn’t given himself this fully, only to be refused just because there would be some complications along the way. Both of them would have to work for their relationship, but any other factors should not matter.

“Well, Anyang is only a thirty-minute train ride away,” Baekhyun whispered in reply, his hands moving to Chanyeol’s hair where he tangled the tips of his fingers in the short locks just so he could play with them some, “we’ll find a way to make it work, right? And if I will have to pretend to be Jaehyun while I’m here just so I can be with you, then I’ll deal with that too.”

It was one of the complications sure to come, Baekhyun’s host body having grown up in Anyang, but if that was what could be the breaking point in their relationship he would figure out a way to deal with it. He could pretend to be someone he truthfully wasn’t, or he could find a way to break ties with Jaehyun’s family and give them the closure they deserved. Either way, he’d make it work, it didn’t have to be an issue.

Baekhyun could hear Chanyeol’s chuckle in his ear, and the hands on his hips slid to his back, gaining enough leverage to pull him in from the waist down. As he tugged him close, Chanyeol dropped his face to Baekhyun’s neck, hiding it there. Their bodies collided, and Baekhyun yelped anxiously but wasn’t released from the hold at all.

Because Chanyeol held on tight, arms wrapped around Baekhyun possessively as his mouth left soft bites to the skin of the shorter’s neck. It was almost as if he never wanted to let go, as if he wanted to prove again and again how he meant everything he had said and done. That he wanted Baekhyun, had wanted him since the very start, and that even though he had screwed up, he wasn’t going to let Baekhyun walk out on him this time.

Baekhyun sort of let himself hang in Chanyeol’s hold, not really knowing what to do apart from holding back any laughter or sobs that were fighting for control of his chest. To make sure neither of them would win, he closed his eyes and tilted his head up to the sky, focusing on other thoughts.

It was then, with him facing the sky, that he silently thanked God for his blessings. Whether he had really helped Baekhyun achieve his dreams he could never know for sure, but Baekhyun sort of hoped that he hadn’t really been left alone to fend for himself.

Human life wasn’t easy, not at all, and he understood now why angels preferred to love without being loved in return. It was scary to fall for someone, petrifying even, mostly because of the uncertainty that it brought with it.

Without any hard evidence of their love, you would have to put your trust in them. Baekhyun would have to put his trust in Chanyeol and believe he wasn’t anything like a demon from hell, living to make other people miserable. He had to feel it.

And he had faith, faith that Chanyeol would be more honest from now on, that he wouldn’t run and would talk about his problems when he felt insecure. He had faith in himself too, faith that he could be stronger now, that they could be better, because he wasn’t as naïve as he had been before.

He knew now that love was a continuous struggle, with moments of intense happiness and moments of pain. But it was that, the faith he had in the both of them, which was the reason Baekhyun was no longer afraid.

Fear, insecurity and sadness had been what had ruined them, and through it they had both grown into different people. Back then they had changed so fast, they had changed too much to handle at that time. But now they had grown, they had conquered their own battles, and they were different, sure, but not unfamiliar.

Chanyeol was still Chanyeol. And he was still Baekhyun. And that meant that they could still be Chanyeol&Baekhyun, a better and more resilient Chanyeol&Baekhyun than they had been in the past. Good on their own, but better together.

Like peanut butter and jelly, bacon and eggs, and Very Berry Strawberry and Cotton Candy Wonderland. Complimenting each other in the best of ways. Timeless classics that would stay classics for the rest of time. Maybe, one day, their names would even be added to that list.

But even if they wouldn’t, it was okay. Because there was one thing Baekhyun knew, one thing he was certain of, and that would never change. He knew that after decades of searching for a place to call his home, through heaven and hell and everything in between, he had finally reached his destination.

He had done so subconsciously, a year before, but he had missed the station. It was only after he had realised what he had failed to notice, that he had reached ‘home’ long before, and after a long detour that followed, that he had finally reached what he had so longed to find:

Love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Andddd that's a wrap. Or is it??? Nah, I've got an epilogue planned. But I need your help for it!   
> The epilogue will be set another year into the future. What do you wish to see/find out about their life a year from this moment? Let me know in the comments.  
> The final final piece, that epilogue, will be uploaded in two weeks time.   
> Anyway, I want to thank all of you for reading this baby of mine ^^ It means the world to me the comments I've gotten and the excitement you have shared. I hope to see you all back for my next adventure, which probably won't take that long to get started. What it will be I'm not sure yet, but I can never stop writing for long! 
> 
> Bye <3 


	36. Epilogue [M]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During summer they grew mellow, melting with the heat until they were just as languid and slow as the days that passed. It was a time of soft, long kisses, of summer night touches that were scorching just like the setting sun, and a time of healing for the both of them.
> 
> Summer had brought them a holiday, a way for them to be together for days on end without either one having to leave for whatever reason. Summer had brought them tears and explanations to the most unintelligible memories, as well as lots and lots of glue.

 

 

 _I've always been in love with you_  
_Could you tell it from the moment that I met you?_

 

“Baekhyun!” That loud and excited voice brought out, the same one he heard every other week when Baekhyun came to get his hair done. Being the manager of a fashion brand brought on quite the grooming routine.

Manicures, occasional hair dying, face masks and a ton of other stuff, Baekhyun did it all to look his very best for his customers. And of course for every other person in his life, especially those close to him. He hadn’t really been good at any of those routine things at first, and so he was happy to know he had done Sehun proud.

The hairdresser that had loudly exclaimed his name, came rolling over to his usual spot and patted the chair to show it was okay for Baekhyun to take a seat. Even before the fallen one had done so, Sehun started talking his ear off, “babe, you look absolutely fabulous in that suit, let me tell you.”

He let his hands trail over Baekhyun’s shoulders when he sat back, and he let out a sound of approval, “damn, if I had been single…” He winked at Baekhyun through the mirror, and the fallen one chuckled and rolled his eyes at him. He knew Sehun was still just as whipped for Junmyeon as he had been two years ago and wouldn’t even think about leaving him. It was kind of cute.

“Sorry, you’re not my type,” Baekhyun shrugged, just in time before Sehun got the cape around his shoulders, and then he chuckled as the hairdresser ruffled his hair in answer to it.

“Fuck you, I’m just as tall as your beloved boyfriend,” he argued, “sure, I don’t have those cute elf ears and I’m not as handsome when I smile, but come on. I’m way more fun than him. At least I can deal with losing games, oh- and don’t forget how I make you look like a king every time you walk out of here.”

“Yeah well too bad I have an ear-fetish and don’t care for fun people,” Baekhyun threw back playfully, knowing Sehun was partly just saying this all because he was always so happy with the result of his work that he managed to fall in love with it a bit every time. Because he knew just how whipped Baekhyun was for Chanyeol too.  

“Gross,” Sehun wrinkled his nose as he started combing through Baekhyun’s hair, laying out his hair until it was flat, “alright, fine, I give in. Although in all honesty, you are for sure the biggest glow-up I have achieved. From homeless to Supreme manager, give me some credit, alright?”

“Alright, sure, I’ll give you the credit. It’s not like I did any of that myself, huh,” Baekhyun replied as he closed his eyes to the water that Sehun sprayed on his hair and partly on his face, probably to tease him. The fallen one whined, keeping his eyes squeezed shut, and Sehun laughed.

He booped Baekhyun’s nose first, “if I had never gotten you out of that homeless look, you wouldn’t have gotten that far on your own, baby boy.” He cooed when Baekhyun opened his eyes and glared at him, and if it hadn’t been for the cape the shorter would have flipped him off now.

“Anyway, while I cut your hair – the usual, right? – tell me how things are. How’s living together? Still peaceful, or has all hell broken loose now? You haven’t broken up since the last time we went out together, have you?” Sehun was already coming up with his own story in his head, gasping in shock at the worst-case scenarios that his head filled with.

“Trust me,” Baekhyun assured him quickly, “if we had, I would not be sitting here. I’d be at home bawling my eyes out and eating ice cream until I’d get fat enough to roll through the apartment. No, no breaking up is happening, and yes, living together is still peaceful.”

Sehun hummed momentarily and then he rolled away, retrieving a colouring book from the pile of magazines he kept near his station, “good, I’m glad to hear that. I like the way he looks at you, I like the way he looks in general too. He is 100% Oh Sehun approved, which means he’s a keeper, so you best hold him close.”

Baekhyun smiled as Sehun opened the book and flipped a few pages. It was nice to hear him approve of Chanyeol, even though Baekhyun wouldn’t have broken up with him even if Sehun had disapproved. He couldn’t change his heart in this, and his heart was fully Chanyeol’s. Baekhyun kind of hoped that was where it would stay too, for the rest of his life.

“I think it’s good for you to start dying only the upper layers, because your hair needs a break from the colouring. So how about instead of this bright hot pink you’re rocking now we’ll go a tint lighter every time you come in, until your hair has grown out enough to dye it back to black,” Sehun started explaining, leaving the topic of Chanyeol behind, and Baekhyun nodded.

“A softer pink is good,” he agreed, “I’m going on a trip after Christmas so it would be nice to stand out a little less whenever I’m not wearing a hat.” He settled a little more comfortably in the chair as he watched Sehun point out suitable options, and a warm smile broke free on his face.

Just like he hoped Chanyeol would be in his life forever, he knew that in Sehun he had found a friend for life. Someone who would always be there to support him and pick him right back up when things were bad, and over the past two years their friendship had grown beyond the walls of the hairsalon too.

From double dates to movie nights, they saw each other more and more nowadays. Sehun and Junmyeon had even started mixing with Minseok and Kyungsoo, and together they had a nice and comfortable friend group.

“Just leave it up to me, honey,” Sehun snapped his fingers once as he closed the book with his other hand, and he twirled around to put it away and pick up his essentials next. When he turned back and flipped his hair out of the way, Baekhyun laughed, his head tipped back. Sehun was definitely something, but Baekhyun liked it.

Things just fit. Baekhyun had reached a point of comfort in his life, a point where happiness was his foremost emotion, and he couldn’t be more thankful to have all these people around him that brightened up his days so much. He had truly been blessed.

~

When Baekhyun came home, the first one that greeted him was their baby. The fluff ball of black curls that had grown so much that he could now jump up against Baekhyun’s leg and almost reach his knee. He was always the first one to welcome him back, running over and barking excitedly as if to say ‘Baekhyun’s home!’

As always, the fallen one bent down to tousle his fingers through Toben’s fur, patting his head too before he straightened himself, and as always the dog ran off immediately after to warn Chanyeol of his presence. It still made Baekhyun smile, every day, especially when there was no Chanyeol around to bark at. Those days Toben would come find him again and bark at him as if to warn him about the missing person in their house.

This time, however, Toben didn’t return, which meant that his boyfriend was home somewhere. He was probably in their bedroom, still packing for their trip which they would be leaving for in the morning. Baekhyun didn’t immediately go there, even though he really wanted to go see Chanyeol, and instead he walked to the kitchen so he could put down his bags on the large countertop of their cooking island.

Distracted by the thoughts in his head, thoughts about life, he leaned on the white marble and gazed into the living room area. Chanyeol had cleaned, apparently, because blankets had been folded and their glasses from the night before had been cleared from the table. The TV was dust free and their couch had fluffed up pillows for the first time in days. It finally looked habitable again.

The apartment itself was exactly what Baekhyun had once envisioned for himself when he first came to earth and had dreams of his life down the road. It had open spaces with lots of light, the same as Chanyeol’s old apartment in Seoul had had, but it was bigger and more modern. Their bedroom felt like a dream, a bit like heaven, and their bathroom had a tub big enough for two. It was romantic and laid-back, and Baekhyun wasn’t ever going to leave this place. He would refuse to.

“Hey,” Chanyeol beamed as he walked in, followed on close foot by a bouncing Toben, “you’re home early.” His boyfriend skipped around the counter, stepping right into Baekhyun’s space to drop a kiss to his lips before he walked on to the fridge to get out a drink, “I didn’t expect you to be back for another two hours.”

“I know, but we managed to reach an agreement way sooner than expected. It was a smooth sailing, and done is done, so I got to leave early,” Baekhyun replied as he tugged the bag he had brought a bit closer to him, “I brought food, I hope you haven’t had anything yet. Oh, and the Kims wish us a happy trip, I told them about it while I was waiting for the food to be done.”

“Ah, cute,” Chanyeol replied before he joined Baekhyun at the counter, hooking his chin over his boyfriend’s shoulder so he could look down at the food that was being unpacked. He hummed in delight as he saw his favourite dish came into view, and Baekhyun could practically feel him smiling.

Only a second later Chanyeol’s hands squeezed Baekhyun’s waist as he realised that to have dinner they needed more than food, “I’ll go get us some plates.” He turned to the cupboards and pulled out plates and bowls as well as chopsticks and a few ladles.

He set the table while Baekhyun spread out the food trays for them, taking the ladles from his boyfriend’s hand and sticking them in the different dishes. It was a ritual they had grown accustomed to, dividing their tasks while setting the table, so domestic.

They had set a goal from the very start, to try and have dinner together at least three days a week, and so far that went pretty well. It was easier now that they were living together, with Chanyeol back in Seoul too, but there were still times where Baekhyun had long days with meetings or parties, and Chanyeol had parent nights and other responsibilities. They always made it work, they had to.

“I think we’re almost set with the packing,” Chanyeol changed the topic when he sat down, waiting for Baekhyun to join him at the table before he started filling his plate with food, “unless I forgot to pack any of your favourites, we’re done. We can flop down on the couch after dinner and go to bed early so we’ll be rested in the morning.”

Baekhyun picked out some food for himself too, and once he had slurped in a mouthful of noodles, he chewed and nodded in agreement. He knew the plan to go to bed early would likely result in failure, but hey, without the attempt it would probably be well past midnight before they’d find their bedroom.

Baekhyun’s foot found Chanyeol’s under the table, nudging them together, and his boyfriend let him fool around for a bit, their toes trying to fight a battle that would decide whose could rest on top. He let Chanyeol win, only because he wanted to take a bit of love rather than give it, and it was nice.

Along to their feet resting together, his lover also reached out a hand towards him, palm facing upwards in invitation to place his own hand in it. And Baekhyun took it. Chanyeol’s touch was gentle, his heartbeat steady, and it calmed him even more.

They ate together, chatting about pointless things that had happened that day. Like how Baekhyun’s colleagues were setting up a bachelor party for Yixing, who was now engaged, including some stupid cross-dressing ideas that would get Baekhyun in a long-haired wig. Or how Seul gi kept asking Chanyeol every day when Baekhyun would come over again to repeat their potato stamp project. He had to now that they were so much older and had new ideas for the future.

They sat there long after their plates had gone empty, until Chanyeol was the one to break their touch so he could stretch his upper body. Then he stood up wordlessly and took their plates before he turned to the sink. Baekhyun watched him from his seat, chin resting on his hands, as his boyfriend quickly cleared the table and put their left-overs away.

It wasn’t entirely a surprise when he eventually turned back around holding a bottle of wine and two glasses while smiling Baekhyun’s way, and the fallen one returned the grin and quickly shot up out of his seat to show he liked that idea.

He followed his boyfriend towards the couch, trailing after him hurriedly, and even before Chanyeol could lean forward in his seat to open the bottle and fill their glasses, Baekhyun had dropped down next to him and pressed himself into his boyfriend’s side.

There was a chuckle near his ear as he curled himself into the crooks of Chanyeol’s body, pressing as close as possible, but Baekhyun paid no attention to that. He closed his eyes and pressed his nose into Chanyeol’s shirt, breathing in deeply. After all this time, his boyfriend still smelled the same. He wondered if he did too.

“I love you,” Baekhyun murmured, breathing in once more, “I love you, and Toben and our house, and us. I’m really happy here.” He knew he had to keep saying it, knew that Chanyeol could start feeling insecure at times if he didn’t, but he meant them every time he did. He was exactly where he wanted to be, in the right person’s arms in the right world.

“I love you too, Baek,” Chanyeol replied as he kissed the shorter’s head, “in this universe and every other.” It was a reference to his letters, to the more than forty outbursts of emotion that Baekhyun still kept in their bedroom to read occasionally. The reference had been used plenty of times now, though, having become this promise between them, and it still got Baekhyun emotional even now.

Because it reminded him of how far they had come. It reminded him of how they had fought through the darkest of times and had found the happiness together that they had known they could have. It hadn’t been easy, but neither of them had regretted it, not even once.

In this universe and every other, they were each other’s.

~

The wintermonths were their thing.

During summer they grew mellow, melting with the heat until they were just as languid and slow as the days that passed. It was a time of soft, long kisses, of summer night touches that were scorching just like the setting sun, and a time of healing for the both of them.

Summer had brought them a holiday, a way for them to be together for days on end without either one having to leave for whatever reason. Summer had brought them tears and explanations to the most unintelligible memories, as well as lots and lots of glue.

Those days locked away together, hidden from the sweltering weather, they spent their time gluing their hearts back together, to a point where the past could be forgiven. It was far from forgotten, and the scars would never fade, but the broken pieces had been put back together and it worked. Somehow summer had helped them make it work.

But as autumn passed and seasons changed to bring the biting and freezing cold of winter, that was when they started rebuilding. The glue hardened, and a new fire was ignited in their hearts, a fire that lasted now the wind couldn’t extinguish it by blowing through the cracks. It was winter that was their season.

Winter brought bickering, tons of it actually, and busy schedules for both of them, but it also brought a passion that could easily outshine the cold. It could melt snow, could set them ablaze in a way that sometimes left Baekhyun worried whether his heart would be able to take it, but it would always win.

That passion was exactly what they needed. Because they were best together when they fought, where they would share whatever they felt in their hearts, shared whatever needed to be said too, and it would always be followed by more intimate moments. Fighting never ended in doors slamming shut or bloody noses, but in tight cuddles, heavy making out or rough sex. Their bickering would never last and they would be better after. Stronger.

But they wouldn’t always fight, there were also times when things were more peaceful and serene, as slow and calm as the easy and effortless falling of the first snow. Like a pond without any wind causing ripples in the water.

Days where they would talk for hours about the most irrelevant things, where they would go and share a microphone during karaoke nights and sing as badly as they could, or where they would spend their shared day-off curled up around each other, doing nothing at all.

Today was one of those days.

Baekhyun felt the body trapped in his arms stir, straining against the one he had wrapped around his boyfriend’s chest, and he pressed his nose tighter against the nape of the neck in front of him as he squeezed his boyfriend’s body in greeting.  

Chanyeol moved his legs, trapping one of Baekhyun’s between his own that way, and he finally stopped struggling once he realised where he was. Baekhyun could feel him relax against his chest after merely a few seconds, and he released a breath against the shorter’s arm before he turned his face into the pillow.

His groan was barely audible as he pressed it into the pillowcase, but it made Baekhyun smile because he could feel its rumble all the way in his own chest. He loved that about cuddling with Chanyeol, they way they felt so impossibly close like that. Pressed together tightly, back to chest, with Baekhyun mostly being the big spoon. They’d have to get up soon, but not yet. Not just yet.

“Who decided we should leave for this trip so early?” Chanyeol grumbled a little louder only a minute later, when he had realised that keeping his face pressed into the pillow would cut off his oxygen. He was referring to the fact that their alarm had just gone off, reading 5:30 a.m, all because they would have to wake up and get ready for their trip. Their skiing trip with Minseok and Kyungsoo, to Japan, which they had planned months before.

Chanyeol had dropped how he liked snowboarding but he hadn’t done it in a while, and they had collectively decided that right after Christmas they’d plan for a few days of winter fun. And that had happened, only it meant they had to get up early because of their flight, and well, that had been a tiny flaw in sleep-loving-Chanyeol’s plan.

“All four of us,” Baekhyun hummed while a smile played at his lips, and he chuckled as he went on, “however… I was the one who set our alarm earlier than necessary.” He could feel Chanyeol already starting to splutter as he heard this news, annoyed with what Baekhyun had done, but the shorter pressed his lips to the nape of Chanyeol neck, where he flicked his tongue across his skin, and concluded his argument with, “’cause I kinda wanted to kiss you some before we go.”

His mouth trailed up innocently, lips pressing to skin again and again until he reached Chanyeol’s ear, where they stopped. Simultaneously, his hand slipped from Chanyeol’s waist and dropped down, down, down, until he could rub his boyfriend’s half hardened cock through flimsy pajama pants, extracting a sharp inhale from his lover’s lips.

Chanyeol instantly pushed back his hips and placed a hand of his own on top of Baekhyun’s, using it to keep it there and to guide him as he melted into the touch. Another breathless gasp left his lips as Baekhyun stroked his fingers upwards, across the fabric of his pants, and then another as Baekhyun balled up the fabric on top and dragged it down, exposing him fully.

As Baekhyun pressed another kiss behind Chanyeol’s ear, his lover tilted his hips slightly so his pants could slide down at the back too, making it more comfortable with the band now around his thighs. He wasn’t wearing any underwear, he never did in bed, and so when Baekhyun’s hand was tugged down again, he could easily curl his fingers around the length of Chanyeol’s cock.

“I guess you no longer mind?” Baekhyun breathed against the shell of his boyfriend’s ear, smiling as he referred to the grumpy man that had been in his arms only a minute before, and Chanyeol huffed but didn’t deny it.

Instead, he turned his face into the pillow as he tried to stay still while Baekhyun touched him, something the fallen one knew he wouldn’t be able to keep up for very long. Especially not once Baekhyun pressed his own hips to Chanyeol’s back, barely reaching the top of his ass with how much shorther he was, but even like that his own erection could be felt.

It sparked a groan, one much lower than the one Baekhyun had felt course through him when Chanyeol had woken up, and he closed his eyes and enjoyed its vibration, waiting for more of it. “I will mind if you’re only going to use your hand on me,” Chanyeol grunted, pressing his whole body back into Baekhyun’s as he did.

This brought out a chuckle in the shorter, and rather than giving him more, Baekyun retrieved his hand and used it to get Chanyeol on his back. It took only a few seconds for the taller to realise that, and as whining about the loss of friction reached his ears, Baekhyun made a hushing sound and crawled up on his hands and knees until he was able to finally, properly kiss his lover’s lips.

Those whining noises continued as they kissed, even as Baekhyun got Chanyeol fully naked before awkwardly pushing down his own pajama pants and wriggled around on his knees until he could slink out of them. There was even louder whining when the fallen one settled himself between Chanyeol’s legs, aligning their bodies as they kissed until skin was touching skin wherever it was possible.

“God, I love your desperate ass,” Baekhyun laughed breathlessly once they finally broke apart, his nose pressed to Chanyeol’s as they breathed the same air. The moment apart gave Chanyeol enough space to think that he could roam his hands all over his boyfriend’s body, and, unsurprisingly, they came to rest on his ass.

Chanyeol lifted his chin up high enough to press another single kiss to Baekhyun’s lips, and then, as his finger massaged the muscles of Baekhyun’s behind, he told him, “well, can’t say you’re not spot on. My ass is indeed desperate,” a finger traced the curve of his buttcheeks, “so, what are you going to do about it?”

Baekhyun had to purse his lips to stop himself from grinning madly. He loved when Chanyeol did that, when he was this straight-forward and sexy, waiting for Baekhyun to take over. It was an open invitation to flip him over and fuck him senselessly, but the fallen one wasn’t really in the mood for this to be rough and quick.

So rather than do just that, Baekhyun rolled their hips together once and then sat back on his heels between Chanyeol’s legs, making his boyfriend’s hands fall from his ass. This time his lover stayed quiet rather than complain about the loss of touch, because he already knew Baekhyun wouldn’t run away and leave him unsatisfied. He knew his teasing would be enough to get what he wanted out of this.

Chanyeol watched him, eyes curious as Baekhyun pushed at his knees to get him to lift his legs. He followed the silentorder easily and placed his feet on the bed, making it possible for Baekhyun to trace his fingers across his thighs.

The fallen one especially loved how soft the underside of Chanyeol’s legs were, how smooth the skin felt there, but he also loved feeling the tautness of muscles in his quads whenever he would tense up from the butterfly touch of Baekhyun’s fingers.

Chanyeol had slim but defined thighs, and Baekhyun loved spending time kissing them and leaving marks there whenever he’d go down on his boyfriend, but today he wasn’t going to. For one, they didn’t have enough time to drag this out _that_ much, and secondly, Baekhyun really wanted more by now than some simple teasing.

And so he got his hands on Chanyeol’s knees and pushed them up, towards his chest, getting them out of Baekhyun’s space with the purpose of getting him on his stomach. His boyfriend had probably expected more from it than it to be used in order to flip him over, but still, he waited patiently rather than complain, and Baekhyun took this time to get up to retrieve the lube from their bedside table.

Chanyeol stayed down on his stomach, but he did pull himself up on his elbows so he could look at Baekhyun while he moved about. He looked gorgeous like that, with his beautiful, broad shoulders on display and his ass perfectly round from the way his muscles tightened in that position. He had been working out for months now, having done it mostly for his own happiness and his health, but Baekhyun got to enjoy this other side effect too.

At times Baekhyun felt like a sack of potatoes when standing next to him, but Chanyeol hadn’t once looked at him differently and so Baekhyun tried not to care. He knew his boyfriend loved his body, he spent plenty of time adoring it, and that was all that mattered to him. It wasn’t important that he had a soft tummy instead of abs, or that his thigs were fluffy and thick, he was still just as beautiful.

“I was thinking of having you on your back,” Baekhyun said while he got one knee on the bed, his body hovering over Chanyeol’s legs, “but I think watching your face would end things much, much quicker than I want them to.”

He trailed his hands up Chanyeol’s thighs before he spread them wide enough so he could settle in between them, with both his knees on the mattress again. Up above him he could hear Chanyeol laugh as he dropped his head between his shoulders, no longer able to turn all the way around to look at his boyfriend, and he breathed out a quiet, “okay.”

It was all the encouragement Baekhyun needed, and in answer he dropped the lube to the bed and made himself comfortable between his boyfriend’s legs. He watched Chanyeol throw the pillows to the side to create more space for them, and when he dragged himself up on his hands and knees, Baekhyun got a full show of that gorgeous ass.

He knew Chanyeol was doing it on purpose, because the taller was very much aware of how good he looked and how much Baekhyun would want him if he teased just the right amount. It was why Baekhyun skipped any indicating of his intentions and went straight in for the jackpot by getting his hands on Chanyeol’s cheeks, and he squeezed shamelessly.

His boyfriend wasn’t at all surprised by this, clearly having expected his teasing to work this way, which made it Baekhyun didn’t wait any longer to trail his fingers to other places. Places much less subtle and innocent.

After quickly running his tongue past his index finger, something he didn’t have to make a show off seen as Chanyeol wasn’t watching him anyway, he used the hand still on his lover’s ass to part his cheeks, and he wasn’t at all kind or slow in working him open.

It turned out Chanyeol was still pretty loose from the soft play they had engaged in the night before, when Baekhyun had blown him rather lazily while taunting him with his fingers. His lover had been half asleep by the time he came, the build up having been so slow that his orgasm had frozen him completely, limbs no longer able to move.  

That had been soft and slow, and although Baekhyun planned to drag this out as much as he could, he wasn’t going to be soft with it. This time he wanted to feel his lover move with him, he wanted a response as frantic as his. He knew how well Chanyeol could take it, too, and so he knew he didn’t have to be gentle whatsoever.

And sure enough, it took barely a few seconds before hips moved back to meet Baekhyun’s fingers, begging him to get on with it already. “Eager much,” he snickered, complying to his boyfriend’s wishes nevertheless, and Chanyeol didn’t comment on it.

From where he sat, Baekhyun could see how red the tip of Chanyeol’s cock was, already begging for attention too, and the fallen one laughed once more before he moved up so he could press his smile into his boyfriend’s lower back.

He retrieved his hand and uncaringly wiped his fingers on the sheets before he picked up the bottle of lube, searching for it for a while, and once he was holding it he easily snapped the cap off. It rolled away from him, but he really wasn’t going to bother with this being neat, so he let it roll.

Pumping the lube onto his hand, the fallen one sat back on his heels once more, seeing the way Chanyeol stayed still as he waited for him to make the next move. He wouldn’t do so until he had properly slicked himself up, his hand sliding across his shaft easily that way.

Then he finally took it further by pulling on the taller’s hips, causing him to slide down on the sheets as the movement was unexpected. Chanyeol’s ass met his crotch, his legs sliding halfway around Baekhyun’s knees, and he dropped from his hands to his elbows, as if he was bent over on the bed in an extended dog pose. ‘Guess yoga is pretty spot on when it comes to naming positions’ Baekhyun thought as he watched Chanyeol’s elongated back, the smooth planes of skin on display.

It wasn’t too difficult for Baekhyun to keep himself up and have his hips meet the skin of Chanyeol’s ass, the sharp snapping thrusts enough to leave angry red marks on his rears as well as the back of his thighs. It was even easier because with Chanyeol’s arms out of the way he could hold on to his boyfriend’s waist and pull him down to him while he thrust his pelvis upwards.

Chanyeol moaned so deliciously at it that it made Baekhyun want to quicken the pace so he could reach his climax as fast as possible. Howevere, he was aware of how that was exactly how his boyfriend was playing it, and he couldn’t give in to that game. He had his own to play.

Baekhyun knew that in this position, with his boyfriend bent over this way, Chanyeol’s cock would only occasionally graze the sheets underneath him, and it was bound to leave him frustrated. Baekhyun wanted to see desperation being taken to a whole new level.

And so he slowed down his hips rather than speed them up, keeping himself still every time he was buried in to the hilt, only for a second, before he would pull back out as far as he could. But that one second was enough for Chanyeol to shiver all over and whine pleadingly. That one second was enough to have him wishing for so much more.

“Do you still regret,” Baekhyun puffed, his chest rising and falling with his irregular breathing, his hands slick on Chanyeol’s waist, “waking up this early?” He eyed the slight sheen of sweat on his lover’s back and noticed the way he tried to arch it in order to gain more control of their movements. Baekhyun cut it off immediately, moving one hand down to Chanyeol’s stomach, to the V-shape of his hips, where he touched his boyfriend only to get him conflicted about which pleasure to chase.

Chanyeol was shaking his head, his hips having decided to try and get some hand action, which was lousy to say the least, but Baekhyun was being lousy on purpose. He loved the way his lover cried out when he didn’t get what he desired, but it also made him feel a little guilty, after which he complied and tightened his grip.

The relieving sigh that filled his ears only a moment later was enough to make him smile, enough to answer his question too, yet Chanyeol still used words to confirm it for Baekhyun, “no. Not unless you have the guts to stop now.”

Baekhyun found the air to chuckle, his head tilted back for a moment in which he saw their ceiling, but he immediately regretted looking away from the beautiful sight below him. “I don’t think I-I can,” he gasped as he stilled his hips again, taking a deep breath as Chanyeol squirmed underneath him, “although I wouldn’t mind staring at you like this for another few hours.”

Annoyed with the lack of movement, Chanyeol fidgeted, writhering underneath Baekhyun as he grunted a loud and guttural, “I swear if you don’t fuking move I’m going to kill you.” He squeezed around Baekhyun’s dick as he groaned it, making the fallen one choke on air and his hips snap forward on their own accord.

“Alright, alright,” Baekhyun wiped his brow as he rolled his hips again, “fucking hell you feel so good.” It was cheesy and anything but sexy, but Chanyeol let him get away with it because at least he had picked up the pace, fulfilling his wish.

Baekhyun’s hands were rough this time, rough enough to leave marks, but it didn’t matter to either of them. No one else would be seeing them, only Baekhyun, as they were each other’s and each other’s alone. He had this all to himself, and the beauty and the bliss this pleasure brought, they made him use the lord’s name in vain.

He cursed so loudly he was sure he could have woken the neighbours, but Chanyeol was squeezing around him again, knowing exactly what he was doing with it too. Baekhyun knew he liked that, clenching around him, it meant that he was close and wanted to feel him better, that he wanted Baekhyun to come with him, and from that moment on it was just the two of them chasing their release as fast as they could.

Baekhyun could only mumble a long string of Chanyeol’s name, one that slowly molded together until it was nothing but a collection of Yeol’s with different letters tying them together. “Ch-yeol, ah- nnnyeol,” he hummed breathlessly, hearing his lover’s whimpers mix with Baekhyun’s as his body stilled and he came on the sheets underneath him.

Growing frantic with desire to reach that same gratification, Baekhyun’s movements were short and sharp. His fingernails digged into his lover’s skin and the soreness in his thighs was overwhelming, but both helped him finally reach that peak.

A moan dripped from his lips, making it sound much filthier than their sex had been, but his boyfriend only met it with one of his own. Chanyeol let him ride it out while his body was already sagging, coming down from his high, and Baekhyun drove his hips a few more times before he followed his example.

After he pulled out he leaned back, feeling those tingling sensations in his legs that told him he had been cutting off his blood circulation, and he chuckled breathlessly as Chanyeol fell over onto his side and stilled like that.

“Shit,” he hissed as he stretched, Chanyeol’s face contorted into one of regret, “I forgot in nothing but a few hours I’ll be on a board, squatting on my way down the slope.” He groaned loudly, pressing his face into the sheets, and as Baekhyun fell down next to him he laughed out loud at his boyfriend’s misery. He couldn’t help it, Chanyeol was too cute like that.

“yeah laugh, you,” Chanyeol grumbled, turning his face back slightly so he could glare at Baekhyun, “I’ll give you a taste of your own damn medicine tonight so you can whine at me all day tomorrow, which you definitely will if I get to have my way.”

“You underestimate how well I can take your dick. Really, I’m like a pro at it by now,” Baekhyun wiggled his eyebrows as he joked, “I won’t feel a thing in the morning, but sure, you can try.” He smiled sweetly in his boyfriend’s direction, but got flipped off in reply.

It made Baekhyun pout slightly, as if that had hurt his feelings, and soon enough Chanyeol fell for it. The taller sighed in remorse and scooted closer to him, his hands pressed to his chest so they would fit in between their bodies, and he moved until they were snuggled closer together.

Baekhyun could see his boyfriend roll his eyes at it all, probably because he knew exactly what would happen now, yet the fallen one ignored it and did just what he had planned. He squealed softly at the cuteness in front of him and then he wrapped himself around Chanyeol like a tiny koala, holding on tight.

This was what Baekhyun loved about early morning, sleepy sex. The softness at the edges of his consciousness, the warmth and fuzziness, the smell of waking up, it was like a warm blanket of pleasure that wrapped around the two of them even in the aftermath of their lovemaking.  

“We’re going to have to get up soon, you _know_ that,” Chanyeol told him, the sound muffled from the way Baekhyun was curled around him making it impossible to talk clearly, “you were the one that said so in the first place.”

It wasn’t just an excuse to escape from the fallen one’s hold, but it definitely was part of it, which was exactly why Baekhyun held on even tighter.  “Yah, they’ll forgive us for being late, I’m sure of it. Let me enjoy this a little longer, okay?”

He huffed with some of that pout still playing at his lips, even though Chanyeol couldn’t see it at all. Then, while wriggling himself closer, he made sure that his boyfriend would feel all the love Baekhyun had to give. He wouldn’t be satisfied otherwise.

And although Chanyeol pretended to be annoyed with him for the cuddling, Baekhyun knew for a fact that he liked it. The tall dork liked to pretend not to be a softy at times, but there was no denying that he was. It was one of Baekhyun’s favourite things too, because it often led to surprise hugs and sneaky kisses and to the both of them waking up feeling way too hot tangled up together.

Secretly, underneath it all, Chanyeol was a huge teddy bear, and Baekhyun was irrevocably in love with it.  

~

“Byun fucking Baekhyun and Park asshole Chanyeol, it’s about goddamn time,” A scary looking Minseok fumed at them once they finally arrived at the airport. Steam was coming out of his ears, his eyes spitting the fire he held inside while he stood tapping his foot against the ground.

His arms were crossed in front of his chest which, combined with how he was wearing a hat and a coat that he was almost drowning in, made him look just like a tiny angry puppy, rather than someone with any authority at all.

Baekhyun couldn’t hold back his laughter, especially not after he had checked out Kyungsoo’s face and saw a hint of amusement there. The prince of hell was standing a few steps away from his lover, with the excuse of guarding their suitcases, and as he leaned back against them he watched his partner’s outburst with the biggest grin on his face.

However, laughing was the wrong thing to do in Baekhyun’s case, because of course Minseok wouldn’t find this a laughing matter. It was only a second later when it started raining hits on his arm as a punishment for that, that and much more.

Minseok even went as far as jumping up and down in his spot so he could bring on some extra force whenever his hands would come down on Baekhyun’s arm. It didn’t hurt, not through his coat, but Baekhyun wasn’t going to say that, obviously. He would like to survive this moment.

“I’m sorry, we’re sorry, let’s get going then,” Baekhyun tried to rush them on as an excuse to stop the attack, but all it did was spark more anger. Minseok yelled at him, eyes so wide they were almost popping out of their sockets, and Baekhyun shrunk in on himself as he anticipated more assaulting.

Before the tiny man could unleash his fury on him once more, Baekhyun felt arms tugging him backwards, away from Minseok and his anger. Chanyeol saved him from another strike by wrapping himself around his boyfriend, walking them both backwards as he did, and Minseok groaned as he failed to follow them in time to be successful.

Baekhyun’s best friend waved them off, clearly not finding the lovey-dovey couple worth wasting more time on, and he turned back to Kyungsoo and their stuff and grumbled some words his way. The demon instantly wiped his smile off his face and turned it into an expression of support - the little shit was that good at acting - and Baekhyun huffed and tugged on Chanyeol’s arm to get himself free.

He didn’t mind the public display of affection, but it was true that if they wouldn’t hurry now, they would possibly end up missing their flight. And so they set their issues aside for later and all picked up their bags before they sprinted the short distance towards the check-in counter.

Minseok was still grumpy, his complaints could be heard from where he stood at the front of their queue, even to Baekhyun, who was trailing behind Chanyeol at the end of the line. But they made it, somehow with some sheer luck, they made their flight.

After they all settled on the plane, with Baekhyun in between Chanyeol and Minseok, he finally sat back and let himself relaxed. On his right, his hand lay in Chanyeol’s lap, fingers entwined with his boyfriend’s, while on his left Minseok sighed as he closed his eyes, “you should be happy I like the two of you so much or else you’d be dead by now.”

Baekhyun felt the corners of his mouth pull up in a smile, and he couldn’t help but tease his best friend a little more. It was just too easy, getting a raise out of him, and Baekhyun succeeded in doing so once more that early morning by saying, “I always thought Kyungsoo was scary, but I take it back. You’re definitely more demonic than him.”

“Aish you little…” Minseok replied, sounding exasperated, his hand already raised high in an attempt to hit Baekhyun, but the shorter put it down again when he realised how a flight attendant was looking their way as she was trying to start her safety instructions. Minseok smiled politely, and next to him Kyungsoo laughed quietly.

It was best to give his best friend some space this morning. Maybe he hadn’t slept well, maybe he wasn’t excited for the trip or maybe it was just the position of the stars that wasn’t right. It didn’t seem to be anything to do with Kyungsoo, which was all Baekhyun needed to know in order to say that whatever it was, it wasn’t anything serious. Minseok was just grumpy. Maybe he needed to get laid.

As the flight attendants explained the safety procedure, showing how to buckle up and how to use the oxygen masks if they would ever get in a situation that required them to, Chanyeol leaned closer to Baekhyun so he could whisper in his ear. His thumb was rubbing circles into the fallen one’s skin, but he stopped once he murmured to him, “I’ve never joined the mile high club, have you?”

Baekhyun raised both his eyebrows as he turned his head to look at his boyfriend, completely shocked by the question. Moreover, he worried about what Minseok would do if he would overhear their conversation, and so he tried to warn Chanyeol with his eyes of how he had to shut up. “No,” he hissed back, “Yeol, this is my first time on a plane, remember?”

Chanyeol smiled at him a little sheepishly, shrugging his shoulder as he realised how he had already forgotten about that, and he leaned in to steal a kiss from Baekhyun’s slighty-parted lips. “Well then I guess we should join it together,” he told his boyfriend as he blinked his eyes charmingly, working those lashes to lure Baekhyun in.

The fallen one wasn’t going to fall for it, though. He hit Chanyeol over the head for his comment and then poked his cheek to show his disinterest, “you really want to get murdered by my best friend, don’t you? No, no way,” he said sternly.

His answer was met with a pout, but not even that Baekhyun would fall for now, not after the wrath he had already had to deal with.

“Please,” Chanyeol begged, somehow managing to still be quiet enough not to draw Minseok’s attention, and the puppy eyes he sent Baekhyun were truly spectacular, but no. They had been late because of sex already and that had enraged Minseok enough, he didn’t want to know how bad it would be if they were to leave to do exactly that once again, with chances of getting caught being much higher here.

“No,” Baekhyun replied, “we just- god, Yeol, no.” He shook his head to show there was no discussing it anymore. He had said no twice now and that was the end of it.

“Okay, fine,” his boyfriend gave in and sat back, making it look as if he would suck it up, but he could never be sure. Baekhyun had hoped he would be quiet now so he could actually pay attention to the instructions they were still getting, but instead Chanyeol turned back to him and asked, “What about on the flight back home?”

Baekhyun wanted to scold his stupid ass boyfriend for not letting it rest, but then he made the mistake to look at his boyfriend’s idiot face, and well, the look he saw there almost made him choke on his own spit.

Because the intensity in his eyes, the smirk on his lips that was pleading yet confident, it made Baekhyun so weak. Chanyeol _knew_ it made him weak. It was a look so hard to resist, but the good thing was that Baekhyun didn’t have to decide right now. He could easily make a false promise.

He sighed, which caused Chanyeol’s gaze to darken more, and then he clicked his tongue and promised his boyfriend a, “maybe.” He didn’t sound too against it, though, and Chanyeol realised this too.

The taller grinned, a twinkle in his eyes now, and he sat back again with Baekhyun’s hand in his lap, holding on just as tightly as before.

~

After they arrived at the resort, the four of them dropped their bags at the hotel where they’d be staying at first, before they went on to the rental shop to get their gear. They were much too early to actually check into their rooms yet, and so the plan was to hit the slopes first before coming back early to relax in their rooms some and then have dinner together in one of the restaurants nearby.

The mood had improved quite a bit over the past hours, especially after Minseok had taken a short nap on the plane, which had apparently been exactly what he had needed to stop himself from being grumpy. Now the atmosphere was laid-back, with Chanyeol walking next to Kyungsoo and Minseok at his side teasing him the way he always did. They were fine again.

After changing clothes and getting their equipment ready, the four of them went back outside to head to the lifts. Chanyeol was carrying a small bag with some water bottles, a few snacks and a camera; their own Polaroid camera. The very one they had bought together to document their adventures and all the steps in their relationship.

They had a photo album at home with pictures of their big move in, of their trip to Jeju Island from back in the summer and of plenty of other occasions too. Baekhyun loved taking it out sometimes so he could look back at the memories they had made together, and he couldn’t wait to add more from this trip to its pages once he’d get back home.

It was Baekhyun’s first time out in the snow and his first time on a board, but he had chosen it because he felt more comfortable getting taught how to snowboard from Chanyeol than getting taught how to ski from Minseok. Something told him that with Minseok he wouldn’t be allowed to be a slow learner, and with Chanyeol he could just let himself fall and his boyfriend would be there to try and catch him. It was an easy decision to make, really.

“Alright,” Chanyeol spoke once they had reached the top of the slopes, “let’s take a picture before any of us go down. The moment before any of us fall and break any bones.” He was shaking his bag down his shoulders and handed it to Kyungsoo, asking him, “Can you take a picture of me and Baekhyun in front of the view?”

Kyungsoo nodded as he took the bag from Chanyeol’s hold and fished out the camera, all while Minseok started sliding backwards and out of the frame, “sure thing.” Baekhyun felt Chanyeol’s arm curl around him tightly, and he leaned into the touch while holding up one hand in a peace sign, like the damn tourist he was.

The prince of hell raised their camera and snapped a shot, which he immediately started flapping in the air to get it to develop. Baekhyun wanted to let go of Chanyeol and go check on it to see if it was any good, but before he could Kyungsoo held up his hand, “hold on, the first one always comes out shitty, let’s try one more time.”

Baekhyun stilled at that and leaned back into Chanyeol’s side again, smiling and repeating his peace sign a second time. Like before, Kyungsoo told them, “say cheese!” and after he had snapped the picture a second time, Baekhyun ran over to him to take a look.

Kyungsoo shook the picture in the air a few times before he held it up for the couple to look at, and sure enough, there they were. Chanyeol’s tall form next to Baekhyun’s smaller one, the two of them looking cozy and happy together dressed in oversized wintersports outfits, and Baekhyun felt himself smile in pride.

The sheer fact that they had gotten here after such a long road, it was still a little magical to him at times like these. Starting over with Chanyeol had taught him never to give up on anything he truly desired, something he was sure had helped him grow so much as a person.

“Thanks Soo,” Chanyeol told their friend as he took back the camera along with the picture. The camera went back into the bag, and the picture was put away in a tiny box that had been brought especially to keep the pictures safe. Baekhyun knew it well, and so he turned back around already while he waited for Chanyeol to finish.

Rather than stand around doing nothing, he went to strap himself into his snowboard. He was sure Chanyeol would be much quicker anyway, so all he was doing was save them both some time which they could spend out on the slopes. Or at least Chanyeol could, because Baekhyun was sure he’d get tired soon enough and would give up on it before his boyfriend would.

“We’re gonna go down already,” Baekhyun heard Minseok say right next to him, Kyungsoo at his side too, and the fallen one nodded as he momentarily looked up from his board. The couple didn’t need more than that to take off, the two of them following each other’s pace as if this wasn’t the first time they were doing this at all. Baekhyun was sure he was the only one who was going to make a fool of himself today.

It only took a little longer for Chanyeol to join him, board ready and all, and Baekhyun sighed while he looked up at his boyfriend, “suddenly I feel like this might not be that great of an idea…” he told him.

Chanyeol laughed at that, a laugh that made his face look cheerful, and so Baekhyun felt a little less stupid because at least he would make his lover laugh with his greenness. He took the hand his boyfriend held outstretched for him, ready to pull him up on his feet, and Chanyeol assured him, “don’t worry, I am a great teacher, you know that. I will teach you how to do this in no time.”

As promised before, Chanyeol went slow on him, taking it step by step and allowing his boyfriend to practice it as often as he wanted to.

First he taught Baekhyun about the board itself and how to keep himself stable on it while sliding down the slope. He let the greenie practice with holding onto the board as he moved as well as with how to move if he wanted to slow done or even brake. And like that, bit by bit and step by step, they went down the slope.

Baekhyun knew this was the easiest one out there in the resort, and he knew he wouldn’t be changing to a different colour any time soon, but he didn’t care. He’d allow Chanyeol to do some more difficult ones on his own later, once he’d get tired of the learning process, but until then the green slope would be their place to be.

“Come on, try it. It’s only a short distance, and if you fall you can just get up and try again,” Chanyeol started encouraging him once they were almost at the very end of the hill. He wanted Baekhyun to try boarding down for a little bit, down to the spot where Minseok and Kyungsoo were still waiting for them, a hot drink in their hands.

“Fuck, no- nono,” Baekhyun shook his head as even the thought of it made him wobble on his legs, “I can’t Yeol, I’m not that- no.” He held out both of his arms to his sides, trying to create some balance, but he could barely keep himself standing, let alone actually make his way down the slope.

“Oh please,” Chanyeol chuckled at Baekhyun’s lack of trust in himself and if the fallen one had looked up at his lover he would have seen him roll his eyes fondly, “what if I hold your hands, will you try then? We can go together.” He made it sound so easy, so hard to refuse too, and Baekhyun found himself agreeing because he had no reason not too.

With hands outstretched, he waited for Chanyeol to approach him and take a hold of him first, because he really wasn’t going to even try and get himself to where his boyfriend was standing. Chanyeol chuckled once more as he skidded closer, holding out his hands in offer.

Baekhyun easily dropped his hands on top Chanyeol’s, and immediately after those fingers closed around his. His boyfriend’s grip felt safe and strong, and Baekhyun knew that he wouldn’t let go unless he really had to. “Just know I will be taking you down with me if you drop me,” he warned as he bent his legs slightly, waiting for Chanyeol to start dragging him down the hill.

He screamed the whole way down, sounding absolutely frightened – which he was – and all the while Chanyeol was laughing at him. His grip never loosened, but Baekhyun could tell his boyfriend was having a hard time staying focused on the hold he had on him. The good thing was that they weren’t going fast at all and so the situation was completely under control, it was just Baekhyun who was getting nervous for no reason.

As they came down, reaching the spot where Kyungsoo and Minseok had been waiting for them for a while now, Baekhyun finally dared to look up. He saw his best friend’s grin first, followed by Kyungsoo’s amused smile, which was half hidden as he was putting away the Polaroid camera into Chanyeol’s bag. Apparently they had taken it along with them, but Baekhyun had been too preoccupied to notice.

“Did you take a picture?! Kyungsoo you better not have! Show me,” Baekhyun yelled at his friend right after he had stopped in a spot where he was standing a little more steadily. He bent down to free himself from his board, and when he looked up again he saw Kyungsoo holding up his hands in defense, the look on his face one of pure innocence.

“I won’t deny I really wanted to, but I was too late to get a good shot. Relax, for now you’re safe,” the prince of hell shrugged it off, and Baekhyun narrowed his eyes but he decided to believe Kyungsoo’s pure eyes. The guy was a great liar, but Baekhyun couldn’t actually find any reason not to believe him at that time.

“Hand me that camera,” Chanyeol interrupted once he finally joined the three of them, his board standing upright in the snow next to them, something Baekhyun hadn’t even thought of because his board was still in the snow behind him.

Kyungsoo obeyed and dug into the bag again to get out the camera he had only just put away. Chanyeol took it in his hands and aimed it at Baekhyun right away, “come on babe, you did it! No matter how short of a ride it was, you did it, so get up there with your board and get a cool pose going. We have to remember this moment: the moment Baekhyun conquered his first slope even though he screamed all the way down.”

Baekhyun flipped him off but lifted his board up so he could walk back up the slope a little bit. He was only doing it to please Chanyeol, and so the pose he took wasn’t that impressive, his face not showing as much pride as his boyfriend’s did, and in answer he received a chuckle and an amused sounding, “turn around, it looks more aesthetically pleasing that way!”

Rolling his eyes, Baekhyun turned his back on them, after which he briefly posed with one middle finger raised up high in the air. He only left it there for a moment, and then he dropped it next to his side and waited for Chanyeol to tell him he had the shot.

To his surprise it took quite some time, so much actually that he almost turned back around to see if maybe they had secretly left him on his own there, but as he tried turning around he heard Minseok’s loud, “yah! Don’t move, you idiot!” and he froze in his spot again.

It was only another moment then before he heard Chanyeol call out that it was okay to move, and when he turned back around he saw the three guys all staring at the picture that Chanyeol was holding in his hands.

Baekhyun dropped his board and made his way over to them, wanting to see it too. The picture was passed around before it was handed to him, and as Baekhyun finally laid eyes on it he had to admit he looked pretty cool in it. The white backdrop to his silhouette was stunning, and his dark clothes definitely stood out that way. He liked it.

“How about we go up and down once more and then rest somewhere with some hot chocolate and some nice food?” Minseok suggested, pointing at the ski lifts again, “we’ll take one of the red slopes now, that’ll take us some more time to get down here, too. Does that sound good?”

Chanyeol nodded and so Baekhyun did too, not caring as long as he had his boyfriend by his side, “sure, that sounds like a plan. Let’s meet back at the bar around the corner. Whoever’s first will have to find a table to sit at.”

Kyungsoo grinned and wittily replied with, “so that’ll be us then.” It made Minseok chuckle, but he didn’t tell his partner to shut up, like Baekhyun had hoped he would. Instead he waved it off and added fuel to the fire by commenting, “don’t worry, we’ll deal with it. See you back here. Have fun!”

‘Have fun’ he said, as if any of this was fun for Baekhyun. He was still way too inexperienced to really enjoy it, which really wasn’t a surprise to him, but it sucked nevertheless. He kind of felt like he was ruining the trip for Chanyeol already with how much help he needed, and this was only the first day. He would just have to find a different way to entertain himself at times too so his boyfriend could actually challenge himself.

Still, as patient as he was, Chanyeol helped him back up the slope and then held his hands almost all the way down, the two of them going much faster this time. Baekhyun forced himself to do the last part on his own, and although he fell twice and managed to scoop snow into his coat on both occasions, he did try it and Chanyeol’s pride grew every time Baekhyun straightened himself and tried again.

Eventually they reached the end of the slope and Baekhyun was a lot quicker this time in getting his shoes freed from the board. Minseok and Kyungsoo were nowhere in sight, and so together with his boyfriend he walked the short distance to the restaurant they had promised to meet up at.

After they put away their boards, Chanyeol’s hand found his, even though they were out in public. Their fingers were cold, even after wearing gloves, but neither of them commented on that, too content just holding on. They searched for their friends like that, and they found them at the back of the terrace, seated at a table with a heater on the side.

The couple waved at Chanyeol and Baekhyun until they were spotted, and then they snuggled a little closer as if to get warmer while they waited for the couple that was approaching. Chanyeol helped Baekhyun slide into the bench across the table, before he took the seat next to him, snuggling closer the same way Kyungsoo and Minseok had.

“Did you order already?” Baekhyun asked, as he was by now in desperate need of something warm to drink. It was late afternoon, the sun was already setting in the sky, leaving it a light blue that Baekhyun loved and didn’t get to see often in Seoul. It made him feel sleepy, but he knew they’d go back to the hotel after this to get some time alone, and Baekhyun was already longing for a short nap he could take there before they’d have to head out for their late dinner.

“Yes, when we saw you were almost here. We didn’t want the drinks to go cold,” Minseok teased, and Baekhyun only stuck out his tongue in order to tease him in return. He had known beforehand that his friends would enjoy making fun of him, but it was becoming easier and easier to deal with already.

As if it was meant to be, their drinks arrived right at that moment. Four mugs of hot chocolate with whipping cream, as well as some cookies to dip in it. It looked cute, all that was missing were the marshmallows.

They all politely thanked the waitress as she put the mugs in front of them, and before she was even done, Baekhyun watched Minseok take out the camera again. “I can take a picture, right? I want to take a shot of these drinks,” he said as he inspected the camera, trying to figure out how to work it. It looked funny, and Kyungsoo quickly leaned in to show him what button to press and what to pay attention to.

At the same time, right next to him Chanyeol raised his mug and took a tiny sip, resulting in him getting a foam moustache on his upper lip. He seemed aware of that as he smiled at Baekhyun and then at Minseok, who snorted at the sight of it and aimed the camera at him.

Baekhyun’s best friend eyed the two of them and then urged them closer, “come on, Baek, follow his example. It’s cute, it’ll make a great picture.”

Shaking his head, Baekhyun lifted the cup to his lips but he didn’t drink yet, “I refuse to embarrass myself with a foam moustache. I’m not a child. However, you can take a picture of that idiot while I sit here drinking my hot chocolate in the classy manner that you’re supposed to.”

Then, to completely go against his own point, he took a sip and let the foam touch his upper lip in the same way Chanyeol had. It wasn’t until he put the mug back down again that the others realised he hadn’t been serious, and when they did they all collectively laughed at Baekhyun, finally for a good reason this time.

He smiled along with them and turned his head to Chanyeol, taking in his wide grin, which looked absolutely ridiculous with the moustache still there underneath his nose. Their eyes met, making a silent promise, and together they turned to face forward, posing dramatically. Chanyeol touched a finger to his chin as if in thought and Baekhyun joined him, copying him almost exactly.

“Okay, so I’m going to utilize this moment to use the restroom, before anyone else here sees me with you idiots,” Kyungsoo brought in then, right as Chanyeol and Baekhyun held their pose, and he quickly got up from his bench before Minseok could snap a picture. He walked past the two moustached boys while Minseok raised the camera as if nothing had happened.

He clicked the button and out rolled the picture, but Minseok started whining straight away, “Wae! Kyungsoo ruined it with his bunny ears, but stay still! I’m taking another one.” He waved the first photograph around for only a few moments before he placed it next to him on the bench, lifting the camera another time to go for a second try.

Baekhyun wanted to comment on how bad his friends were at taking pictures and how expensive the film was for a Polaroid camera, but he found it really wasn’t worth saying. He only sat back and wiped his moustache away, feeling a sudden blush of embarrassment set in. But Chanyeol’s hand found his underneath the table, and once again all was good.

~

A few hours later Baekhyun was fully dressed up, looking pretty fancy in his white button up and his sleek shoes. Chanyeol had told him that Minseok had made reservations at a pretty high class restaurant at the edge of the resort, and so it had been necessary to dress accordingly. He quite liked it, though, because it meant he got to see Chanyeol’s strong biceps in a tight dress shirt, and honestly, who wouldn’t enjoy that view?

They joined their friends in the lobby of the hotel, after which Minseok led the way outside. He had a tiny map written onto a tiny post it note and Baekhyun wasn’t sure he should trust this to go well, but he had no choice but to let it happen. He didn’t know anything about the restaurant, he couldn’t exactly take charge of this.

Chanyeol was still carrying around that godawful bag with him, even though it didn’t fit their outfits at all right now, but even that Baekhyun had let be. As long as he didn’t have to be the one to carry it, he didn’t care how much unnecessary weight his boyfriend decided to drag along.

“Hey, look,” he heard from next to him, Chanyeol’s tone one of surprise, and when Baekhyun pulled himself out of his thoughts he noticed what his boyfriend had already spotted. It was the snow.

It was snowing softly, like a slow rain of white falling down on them and covering their shoulders in a layer of frost.

Baekhyun briefly thought of his hair, which was a stupid first thought to have, but then that thought vanished as he looked at Chanyeol’s face next. He could see a fondness there in his eyes, the memory that was on his mind as clear as day to Baekhyun. He remembered it himself too, that night of the karaoke bar, the night he first went home with Chanyeol.

Snow fit them, snow commemorated some of their most important moments. It was said that watching the first snow with the one you loved meant you were destined to be, and Baekhyun had seen his first snow with Chanyeol over two years ago. The fact that they were together this day, made him a firm believer of that myth. He wanted it to be true with all his might.

“It’s snowing, yeah,” Baekhyun smiled tenderly, tipping his head back so he could catch the flakes with his face, “Toben would have loved it here. He loves the snow just as much as we do.” He thought about the days where they had walked Toben together, out in the snow, and how much the fluffy ball of black loved to get himself completely white.

Chanyeol hummed, his hand squeezing around Baekhyun’s, and they shared a silence then that was entirely too comfortable. Even Kyungsoo and Minseok seemed to have gone quiet, for whatever reason, and for a while nothing could be heard but their quiet steps in the tiny crackling layer of white.

“We’re here,” Minseok eventually broke it, stopping in front of a place that looked expensive from the outside, just as much as it probably was on the inside. The building wasn’t that old, the facade a modern style one, and the entrance looked just as fresh and contemporary as the outside would suggest.

They took off their coats while Minseok went to explain they had made a reservation, and soon enough someone came to take their coats and hang them up before guiding them towards their table. Chanyeol kept his bag with him, which was a clash of styles to say the least, but Baekhyun only rolled his eyes at him before he let himself be dragged into the restaurant.

They were placed near the windows, in a booth style setting that excluded them from the other tables just a little bit. It definitely looked expensive, with all these dark reds and golds in the furniture, and Baekhyun was glad that he worked for Supreme now so he could actually afford this. He was no longer homeless, having to count every penny and buy the cheapest things out there.

He made sure to enjoy it too, and he did so by ordering the most expensive main course that he could find, which coincidentally ended up being his favourite dish on the menu as well. Chanyeol sent him a smirk, as if he realised what Baekhyun had been thinking about, and the fallen one kicked him underneath the table as if to tell him to shut up.

As they enjoyed the food, eating way too quickly as usual, they made some small talk about what they had done for Christmas and what their families had been going through. It had been a while since they had last seen each other, and so catching up was nice, even though most of the time they were focused on eating rather than discussing how awful Minseok’s aunt had been during the family dinner.

It was only after the main course that the mood suddenly changed remarkably. Minseok and Kyungsoo grew quieter, their eyes trailing to Chanyeol more and more, and Baekhyun found himself frowning at how the air felt tense around them for some reason. He didn’t understand what was going on, not even when Chanyeol finally cleared his throat and lifted his bag into his lap.

“I- uh, I brought our album,” Chanyeol broke the quiet as he got said photo album out of the bag, like it was no big deal whatsoever, and he placed it in front of Baekhyun on the table, “I thought maybe we could put in the pictures we took today?”

It was confusing to Baekhyun why on earth Chanyeol had bothered bringing the whole damn album along with him, having it take up precious space in his luggage, when they could have just put the pictures in it at a later time, once they’d be back home again. Yet he didn’t say any of that, mostly because Chanyeol was still talking.

“I already added in a title for this trip and all, check it out,” he said while he waited for Baekhyun to open the album and actually flip through it until he’d reach the last filled-up page. Once he finally did, having the first pictures greet him, Chanyeol turned back to his bag and took out the small tin box with pictures that he always carried around along with the camera.

Baekhyun easily found the first empty page, which was about halfway into the album, leaving plenty of room for more adventures, and he saw that Chanyeol had put today’s date as well as the location they were at at the very top of the page. The corners were filled with blue snowflakes and pink hearts, colours that were mixing well together somehow, but what Baekhyun’s eyes were really drawn to were the words in the middle of the page.

‘He said…’

That was all, those two words followed by dotted lines, and Baekhyun looked up in confusion as Chanyeol handed him the first picture from the box, the first they had taken that day. “Can you put them in for me?” he asked as he held it out, sounding suddenly nervous. It was his voice that was betraying him, but Baekhyun didn’t understand his reason for it, and that made it he started feeling anxious too.

The first picture he took from Chanyeol’s hold was the one they had taken this morning, before Baekhyun had first gone down the slope. Or well, it wasn’t exactly the same as the one he had seen back then, but it was similar. Because behind him and Chanyeol he could see Minseok, his best friend, who was holding a piece of paper that read in big black letters the word ‘promise’.

He couldn’t remember this happening, and he was certain that it hadn’t been in the picture he had seen that morning, there had been no Minseok in there, after all. Then, as if it suddenly came to him, he remembered how Kyungsoo had thrown away the first failed shot, or so Baekhyun had thought. Could this be that picture? The one he hadn’t spared a second thought?

Still confused about this all, Baekhyun put the picture down in the upper left corner, as if it was the first in a row of pictures, and only when he had put it there did Chanyeol hand him the second one. Baekhyun noticed his hand was trembling slightly, and yet again he failed to make sense of why, he only knew his heart was beating out of his chest for some illogical reason, and that all of this was weird.

The second photo showed the two of them sliding down the slope, with their hands linked between them and Baekhyun’s mouth open in a scream while Chanyeol laughed so brightly it could be seen from that far away. He remembered that moment very well, he just didn’t remember the picture being taken.

Just like in the first photo, this one showed a white piece of paper with large black lettering. It was showing him the word ‘me’, which connected to the first picture, as if it was meant to make a sentence. It had probably been held by Minseok again, but his friend couldn’t be seen this time, only his hand as it held the paper in the frame.

‘Promise me’.

Baekhyun put the picture down next to the first and immediately after, before he could open his mouth to ask what the hell was going on, Chanyeol pushed another photograph into his open palm. Like he was scared if he wouldn’t rush this, he would lose the guts to do so, and well, Baekhyun couldn’t hold back his curiosity to see what was in it.

The third picture was his pose at the foot of the slope, his stance making him look bigger than he was. Or so it would have done, hadn’t it been for Chanyeol who was hiding half of Baekhyun’s body from view. His boyfriend stood a lot closer to the camera and was smiling awkwardly in the picture, holding a white piece of paper in his hands that read, ‘your’.

‘Promise me your’.

It was on the tip of his tongue, ‘promise me your what?’, but he couldn’t bring the words out, because as he put down the third picture and took in the full page, the puzzle pieces suddenly started coming together. ‘He said…’ had rapidly brought on a shit storm of thoughts about what this could possibly be, but Baekhyun shot them all down in the fear that he was wrong.

It couldn’t really be _that_ , right? No way in hell that Chanyeol would be doing such a thing, he couldn’t imagine it to be _that_ , and so he tried to ban the thought from entering his mind again, even as he got the fourth picture that pretty much confirmed what he had been thinking. Or some version of it, at least.  

The final picture was of them being idiots with their foam moustaches, pulling silly faces at the camera with Chanyeol making a kissy face in Baekhyun’s direction while Baekhyun himself stuck out his tongue as far as he could.

This time, behind them again, Kyungsoo was holding the fourth and final piece of paper, with the last word to finish the sentence.

‘Promise me your forever’.

Baekhyun laid down the last picture, after which the whole table was silent and awaiting his reaction. He could feel the uncertainty and nerves radiating from his lover next to him, and it kicked up his heart rate another bit, because holy shit.

Holy shit, this was really happening.

“Chanyeol… Are you-“ Baekhyun started, stopping abruptly because he didn’t know how to word this, “I- what-“ he stuttered, laughing blankly as he felt so detached from reality then. He hadn’t ever expected this, or rather, he had forced himself not to think about it being an option after everything they had gone through. But it was happening. It was really happening.

“Baek,” Chanyeol spoke, his voice noticeably close to breaking, “I love you, you know I do. I fucking love you,” he turned to his boyfriend, which forced Baekhyun to really look at him this time.

There was a desperation in his eyes, and it was as if he was begging him now, “I just- I don’t care for labels and I know you don’t either, but I want to make you mine. I want to let you know how much I want you, how I see my forever with you, so that’s why I’m asking you if you can promise me yours.”

Baekhyun’s jaw dropped, his mouth opening as if to say something, but he came up empty. His lips kept moving like a fish out of water but nothing came out, absolutely nothing. The shock had paralysed him, made his whole body and mind go into overdrive, and Chanyeol turned to apologising. “I’m sorry I overwhelmed you like this, I’m sorry I don’t have a ring because I wasn’t sure you’d want one or not, but I wanted to-“

Raising his hand up, Baekhyun managed to shut Chanyeol up from his rambling. Across from them Minseok and Kyungsoo were sitting like frozen statues, silently watching them and holding their breath as they waited for an answer, but Baekhyun was still too overwhelmed for that.

And so he simply took in Chanyeol’s face, trying to look past the insecurity that he was causing him now. He knew he should answer, knew this was torture for Chanyeol, but Baekhyun wanted so badly to remember this moment and the way he was feeling right now, because rather than feel any worries or fear at the promise he would have to make, he only felt joy.

He felt like he had broken free from everything, like he hadn’t realised how there was another higher form of happiness that he could reach. Chanyeol was offering him more than his everything which he had already put into their relationship, and that seemed impossible, but Baekhyun understood him. He knew what it meant, what Chanyeol would have really asked him here if it had been possible, but it was enough.

It was more than Baekhyun could have ever dreamt to find. More than he had hoped to reach in life by coming to earth. His dream had been finding love, not the love of his life, and yet. Yet there he sat being proposed to, yet there he sat feeling more himself than ever before, and like that it had become easy to answer.

“Hand me a pen,” he said, which of course was a strange thing to ask, and it made Chanyeol stare at him in utter confusion. He wasn’t the only one puzzled by the question, Minseok and Kyungsoo looked the same, but all Baekhyun did was hold out his hand, “just do it.”

As confused as he was, Chanyeol started rummaging through his bag to look for a pen he could offer his boyfriend. The whole table was dead quiet still, and Baekhyun was sure all four of them were holding their breaths now.

It was quite a miracle his boyfriend could find a pen so quickly, but Baekhyun was thankful for it because he was already growing impatient himself, needing these nerves to fade away so he could properly breathe again.

He snatched the pen from Chanyeol’s hand and he brought it down to the page, using quick and harsh strokes to write his answer down on paper. Written in ink it held more weight, the promise now matching a contract he had signed, an oath that he couldn’t take back.

When he had finished he threw the pen down and turned his whole body to Chanyeol, whose eyes were glued to the page as he took in the hugely written ‘yes!’ that Baekhyun had put there.

He watched that relieved smile break out on his lover’s face, and he fleetingly registered Minseok’s squeal of happiness before he was kissing the man of his dreams, right there in the middle of a restaurant in Japan, with snow falling outside and enough warmth inside his heart to melt it all away.

“Really?” Chanyeol asked breathlessly when he broke their kiss to gasp for air, and this time Baekhyun both nodded and uttered a quiet, “yes, really.” And then their lips were locked again, their arms trying to pull each other closer and hold on tighter, as if they couldn’t get close enough.

It was the truth, too, because Baekhyun never could and never wanted to get enough of him. He wanted to forever stay this high in the clouds, with Chanyeol right there besides him on it. He wanted to forever wake up feeling warm and loved wrapped up in his lover’s arms, wanted to never lose the playfulness they had, wanted foam moustaches and everything else that came with loving Chanyeol.

With this promise, this simple agreement between the two of them where they had simply vowed to be that for each other for the rest of their forever, it was as much a pledge as marriage would have been. They didn’t need a piece of paper to make it official, and if they did, they already had that. It was there, right in that album, with both of their handwriting on the same page of a book filled with nothing but the best memories of Baekhyun’s life.

And really, love could be that easy.

 

 

~ THE END ~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was really it! I could have wirtten about a hundred other things about their lives as I envision it to be, but then I'd be writing another goddamn 30 chapter fic so I thought this was enough. Some smut for you M-rated lovers and a whole fluffy ending for those who enjoy the happily ever after idea. They'll be fine these two <3  
> Anyway I'm sorry for the crap amount of mistakes in here, I literally edited half of this today bc I've been so damn busy I almost didn't get to finish it, but I made it!!
> 
> If you have any questions left about their lives that you desperately want answered, you can always ask me and I will happily share my thoughts without turning it into another 14k of story ><
> 
> Once again, thank you all for reading this work, it's been a ton of fun. I'll be back, my head is full of new ideas already! 

**Author's Note:**

> So that was chapter 1. A little flash forward to what will happen soon. Not yet, but soon.... Liking it so far? Bookmark! Kudos? Comments? <3 
> 
> ~
> 
> He was so lost in the song playing in his ear that he hadn’t noticed how the guy that had been walking past him had stopped and turned around again. In fact, he didn’t actually become aware of him until he heard a voice behind him call out a soft and unsure sounding, “Jaehyun?”
> 
> Everything about the voice made Baekhyun freeze, and all he could think was ‘no’ as his body seemed to respond before he could. His instinct to flee was overruling the one that told him to fight, and so he tried to shake it off, make his frozen legs move.
> 
> But Baekhyun had made the mistake to pause his singing as he listened to the voice that was calling out the name of the guy whose body he had taken. And even though he had picked it up right away as he started walking again, his frozen limbs somehow listening to his orders, it was too late.


End file.
